Kazakhstan purchased 800 thousand doses of flu vaccine

800 thousand doses of vaccine has been purchased to battle seasonal influenza in Kazakhstan. The preparations are timed to the forthcoming flu and acute respiratory viral infection epidemic season, Tengrinews.kz reports, referring to Kazakhstan Healthcare Ministry’s press-service. “800 thousand doses of influenza vaccine totally worth 549.8 million tenge ($3.7 million) have been purchased at budget expense. A large scale immunization campaign against influenza will kick off on October 1. This year the campaign will be focused on vaccination of pregnant women and children and is due to finish on December 1,” the press-service reported. The epidemiological situation was stable last year, with threshold values surpassed. 859 211 cases of acute respiratory viral infection and 549 cases of influenza were registered last year. “According to the monitoring of last year's epidemic season, 495 million tenge ($3.3 million) were allocated from the local budgets all over Kazakhstan. The money was used to vaccinate 709,184 people. Another 211,164 people were vaccinated at private company's expense and 160,655 people on their own expense. More than 1 million people were vaccinated in total. No postvaccination complications were registered,” the press-service reported.