Kassym-Jomart Kemeluly Tokayev is a Kazakh politician and diplomat who has served as President of Kazakhstan since 2019. Between 20 March and 12 June 2019, he served as acting president after the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had been president for nearly three decades.
Asqar Uzaqbaiuly Mamin is a Kazakh politician and economist who served as the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan from 2019 to 2022, resigning due to pressure from the 2022 Kazakh unrest. He served as First Deputy Prime Minister from 9 September 2016 to 21 February 2019. Previously, he was the president of the Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, the national railway company of Kazakhstan. He also serves as the president of the Kazakhstan Ice Hockey Federation, a position he assumed in 2008.
Defender of the Fatherland Day is a national holiday celebrated annually on May 7, commemorating the founding of the Armed Forces of Kazakhstan. The event is marked by military parades, fireworks and ceremonies all around the country. The holiday is perceived in society as "a men’s day" and is considered to be the Kazakh analogue to the International Women’s Day.
Bakhytzhan Abdiruly Sagintayev is a Kazakh politician who was a Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, from 9 September 2016 until his resignation on 21 February 2019. He served as the Äkim of Almaty from 28 June 2019 until he was replaced by Erbolat Dosaev on 31 January 2022 following the 2022 Kazakh unrest which greatly affected the city.
Legislative elections were held in Kazakhstan on 10 January 2021 to elect the members of the Mäjilis. This was the 8th legislative election in Kazakhstan's history since its independence. It coincided with the 2021 local elections. This election marks the first to be held under Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's presidency and the first since 2004 to be held at the normally scheduled date, rather than due to an early dissolution of the Mäjilis.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Belarus was a part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have spread to Belarus, when the first case of COVID-19 in the country was registered in Minsk on 28 February 2020. As of 29 January 2023, a total of 19,047,714 vaccine doses have been administered.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Kazakhstan was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Kazakhstan on 13 March 2020 after two Kazakh citizens in Almaty returned from Germany. That same day, two more cases were confirmed, with one female arriving from Italy in Astana and the other from Germany in Almaty as well. Following the outbreak, on 15 March 2020, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a state of emergency that was set to last until 15 April 2020. However, measures were prolonged in order to curb the transmission of the virus, leading to many notable holidays such as Nowruz and the Victory Day being cancelled. On 19 March 2020, a strict quarantine was placed on the cities of Astana and Almaty, where the most cases were occurring. On 30 March 2020, Atyrau and five cities in Karaganda Region went under a lockdown.
Turkmenistan is the only remaining sovereign country in the world that has not reported any cases of COVID-19. There were no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Turkmenistan, with the totalitarian government being proactive in censoring relevant information. It is however suspected to have spread in the country unreported; specifics are difficult to ascertain and confirm in absence of independent media.
Yelzhan Amantaiuly Birtanov is a Kazakh politician who served as the Minister of Healthcare from 2017 to 2020.
Sputnik V or Gam-COVID-Vac is an adenovirus viral vector vaccine for COVID-19 developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Russia. It is the world's first registered combination vector vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19, having been registered on 11 August 2020 by the Russian Ministry of Health.
CoronaVac, also known as the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, is a whole inactivated virus COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech. It was phase III clinically trialled in Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Turkey and relies on traditional technology similar to other inactivated-virus COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine, another Chinese vaccine, and Covaxin, an Indian vaccine. CoronaVac does not need to be frozen, and both the final product and the raw material for formulating CoronaVac can be transported refrigerated at 2–8 °C (36–46 °F), the temperatures at which flu vaccines are kept.
EpiVacCorona is a peptide-based vaccine against COVID-19 developed by the Russian VECTOR Center of Virology. The lack of protective effectiveness of EpiVacCorona, which is still in use in Russia, has been reported in scientific literature and in the media. The vaccine consists of three chemically synthesized peptides that are conjugated to a large carrier protein. This protein is a fusion product of a viral nucleocapsid protein and a bacterial MBP protein. A phase III clinical trial to show whether or not the vaccine can protect people against COVID-19 was launched in November 2020 with more than three thousand participants. The conclusions and results of the trial have not been made public.
The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Russia is an ongoing mass immunization campaign against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), in response to the ongoing pandemic in the country. Russia became the first country to begin a mass COVID-19 vaccination programme on 5 December 2020, starting with primarily doctors, medical workers and teachers. In January 2021, this was extended to the entire population.
CoviVac is an inactivated virus-based COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Chumakov Centre, which is an institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was approved for use in Russia in February 2021, being the third COVID-19 vaccine to get approval in Russia. It obtained a permission for phase III clinical trial on 2 June 2021.
QazCovid-in, commercially known as QazVac, is a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems in Kazakhstan. QazCoVac-P is a second COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Kazakh Biosafety Research Institute and in clinical trials.
Sputnik Light is a single dose COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. It consists of the first dose of the Sputnik V vaccine, which is based on the Ad26 vector, and it can be stored at a normal refrigerator temperature of 2–8 °C (36–46 °F). The institute says this version would be ideally suited for areas with acute outbreaks, allowing more people to be vaccinated quickly. It will also be used as a third (booster) dose for those who received Sputnik V at least 6 months earlier.
COVID-19 vaccine clinical research uses clinical research to establish the characteristics of COVID-19 vaccines. These characteristics include efficacy, effectiveness, and safety. As of November 2022, 40 vaccines are authorized by at least one national regulatory authority for public use:
Kunsulu Daltonqyzy Zakaryia is a Kazakh researcher in biological safety, Doctor of Biological Sciences, and from April 2023 the President of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences.
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