How to strengthen the biological safety of Central Asia region?

The Times of Central Asia says the region that sits on the crossroads of international production and trade routes, is particularly vulnerable to outbreaks of new infectious diseases. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the vulnerability of states with undeveloped science and technology. That is why cooperation of Central Asian countries in sanitary-epidemiological control is becoming vitally important, the online newspaper Novye Litsa (New Faces) wrote in an article.

Kyrgyz scholars have not developed an anti-COVID vaccine during the pandemic and local medics have used treatment protocols borrowed from foreign countries.

Today the sanitary-epidemiological control in Kyrgyzstan has not improved and the problems with financing the sector, equipment and qualified staff persist. This poses a threat for the collective health of the population of Kyrgyzstan and the entire Central Asian region.

The only solution is cooperation and exchange of experience with countries where this sector is more developed.

For instance, during the past decade neighboring Kazakhstan has taken serious measures to control infectious diseases. This country has a functioning anti-plague service and a national scientific center of highly hazardous infections. Kyrgyzstan does not need to reinvent the bicycle — it needs to cooperate with the neighboring state in the sphere of biological safety to learn the latest experience, conduct joint researches, train medical staff, jointly detect possible hotbeds of infections, and develop common treatment protocols for future outbreaks.

The high attention to issues of biological safety and sufficient financing of this sector allowed Kazakhstan to become the only country in Central Asia that developed its own coronavirus vaccine, QazVac.

However, over the past two years Russia has repeatedly raised the issue of biological laboratories in Kazakhstan. Russian media have reported on the operation of a biotechnological complex in Kazakhstan that has indications of an illegitimate military character under the auspices of the United States. Those reports have not presented any proofs of the allegation.

Indeed, Kazakhstan has two Biosafety level 3 (BSL3) laboratories. The first one is in Almaty, at the Masgut Aikimbayev scientific center of quarantine and zoonotic infections. The second one is located in the Scientific-Research Institute of Biological Safety Problems, in the Zhambyl province. There are plans to build a new, BSL4 laboratory in the village of Gvardeisky, Kordai district, Zhambyl province.

Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said that the Central Reference Laboratory in Almaty, built with the US support, as other similar scientific centers, has belonged exclusively to Kazakhstan for several years now and has worked for the interests of Kazakhstan.

In 2020 the then Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, Mukhtar Tileuberdi, told journalists that the Laboratory had been passed over to the government of Kazakhstan and the country now conducts its researches in that lab.

Both the Foreign Ministry and Kazakh specialists have stated that the Reference Laboratory for the study of highly hazardous pathogens is a civilian facility and no American or any other scholars work there. Moreover, its Biosafety level 3 does not allow development of any biological weapons.

Groundless reports in Russian media reflect the mainstream aggressive publications in Russia and statements of some Russian politicians concerning Kazakhstan’s biotechnological complex. By doing so, Moscow plants false information to discredit biological research in neighboring countries.

This happens despite the fact that in May 2021, a Russian governmental delegation visited the Central Reference Laboratory in Almaty and did not reveal any facts of Kazakhstan not complying with its commitments regarding chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials.

The purpose of planting such false information is quite obvious — formation of a negative background and intimidation of the population by consequences of cooperation with the US. The future purpose would be complete refusal from any cooperation with scientific centers of any country except Russia. Today Russia is in international isolation. The question is whether Central Asian scholars should choose a path of self-isolation and put their populations under modern threats.