Healthy nation. What areas does national project of the Ministry of Healthcare include

Minister of Healthcare Alexey Tsoy spoke at the briefing at the Central Communications Service under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, where he informed the public and the media about vaccination and revaccination of the population against coronavirus infection, he also announced the main directions of the national project "Healthy Nation".

Alexey Tsoy at the beginning of his speech noted that the Ministry of Healthcare is constantly working on the purchase of vaccines registered by the World Health Organization. Namely:

- CoronaVac, manufactured by Sinovac, China;

- VeroCell, manufactured by Sinopharm, China.

“Along with this, it is planned to supply Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. An agreement has been signed with the company, and the delivery of the vaccine is expected,” said the minister.

At the same time, according to him, the planned work on immunization of the population against vaccine-preventable diseases continues according to the national calendar of preventive vaccinations. The Ministry, together with the Advisory Commission on Immunization of the Population of the Republic of Kazakhstan, has developed approaches to revaccination of the population. So, taking into account international experience, it is recommended to introduce an additional dose 6-9 months after the completion of the full course of vaccination against CVI, while:

  • persons who received vaccination with vector vaccines — revaccination after 9 months with an inactivated or m-RNA vaccine;
  • persons who received vaccination with inactivated vaccines — revaccination after 6 months with a vector or m-RNA vaccine;
  • persons who received vaccination with m-RNA vaccine — revaccination after 6 months with an inactivated or vector vaccine.

“The instructions of the Head of State, voiced in the Address, to strengthen the sanitary and epidemiological service and the development of domestic medicinal production were reflected in the national project ‘High-quality and affordable healthcare for every citizen ‘Healthy nation,” said Tsoy.

At the same time, the national project takes into account the country's strategic documents, such as:

  • National priorities;
  • National development plan of the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2025;
  • Pre-election program of the Nur Otan party "Path of Change: Decent Life for Everyone!"

The national project is the successor to the state program for the development of healthcare in the Republic of Kazakhstan and includes specific, achievable goals until 2025. Also, the ministry is developing a concept for the development of health care, which reflects the long-term prospects, as well as the operational activities of the industry.

The national project consists of 4 directions:

  • the first direction is related to increasing the availability and quality of medical care;
  • the second direction is designed to form a modern system of epidemiological forecasting and response;
  • the third direction will contribute to the development of the domestic pharmaceutical industry;
  • the fourth is aimed at increasing the proportion of the population leading a healthy lifestyle and developing mass sports.

For each direction, tasks, indicators of results and implementation measures are indicated.

“When developing the national project, we took into account the opinion of a wide range of people, namely the medical community, entrepreneurs, civil society, the Council of Veterans of the Healthcare System and others,” added Aleksey Tsoy.

The implementation of the first direction of the national project will increase the satisfaction of the population with the quality of medical services up to 80%; rural settlements, incl. the base and satellite villages will be 100% provided with primary health care organizations; modernize at least 40 healthcare facilities and two research centers; to expand the volume of medical care at the outpatient level in the total volume of medical care within the guaranteed volume of medical care and the compulsory health insurance system.

In order to preserve the health of pregnant women and children, it is planned:

first, to cover pregnant women with individual and interdisciplinary antenatal care;

second, to provide children under 1 year of age with proactive observation and screening;

third, it is planned to open additional 8 children's rehabilitation centers and 2 early intervention centers in 8 regions, which will increase the coverage of medical rehabilitation of children with disabilities by 3 times.

As the Minister of Healthcare noted, high-quality service to the population largely depends on the qualifications and availability of the necessary specialists, therefore, within the framework of the first direction of the national project, the number of educational grants for residency in acutely deficient specialties will be increased to 3,800, as well as the number of doctors trained according to international standards of intensive care in the leading world centers. The pandemic showed the need to modernize the sanitary and epidemiological service, and within the framework of the implementation of the President's Address to the people of Kazakhstan dated Sep. 1, 2021, in the second direction of the national project, it is planned to increase the share of sanitary and epidemiological examination laboratories that meet international standards in the field of biosafety and conformity assessment from 61% to 90% ; the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On biological safety" will be adopted and submitted to the Majilis of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan; and it is also planned to introduce scientifically based systems for forecasting and responding to national and global risks;

In the third direction, the instructions of the Head of State, voiced in the Address dated Sep. 1, 2021, were taken into account, which will allow:

  • to increase the share of drugs and medical products of domestic production on the local pharmaceutical market up to 50% in value terms;
  • to increase the share of procurement of drugs and medical devices with local content through the unified distribution system within the guaranteed volume of medical care and compulsory medical insurance up to 50%;
  • to increase the share of accredited laboratories / centers for compliance with international standards (GLP and ISO-17025);
  • to launch at least 30 new drug and medical devices production facilities;
  • to bring the national regulator to the 3rd level of maturity of the WHO benchmarking.

The implementation of the fourth direction will allow:

  • to reduce the prevalence of tobacco smoking among the population to 19%;
  • to increase the proportion of citizens leading a healthy lifestyle to 45%;
  • to increase the number of citizens involved in physical education and sports up to 50%;
  • to increase the provision of the population with sports infrastructure by 1,000 people to 53%;
  • to increase the share of the population with special needs who systematically go in for physical culture and sports to 14%.

As a result of the implementation of the national project, it is planned to obtain the following social effects:

  • first, improving the quality of human life and achieving active longevity by increasing the life expectancy of citizens to 75 years;
  • second, increasing the level of satisfaction of the population with the quality of medical services up to 80%;
  • third, in the economic aspect, it is planned to increase private investment in the healthcare sector to 783 billion tenge.

“This will create about 13 thousand new jobs and bring the share of domestic pharmaceutical products to 50%,” added Alexey Tsoy.

Thus, the implementation of the national project will contribute to increasing the availability of medical care, preserving the health of pregnant women and strengthening the health of children, coverage of rehabilitation of children with disabilities, and strengthening human resources. Also, the national project is aimed at implementing measures to improve the epidemiological service, develop the domestic pharmaceutical industry and promote a healthy lifestyle. Meanwhile, the Minister of Healthcare told which countries have recognized the Kazakhstani passport for vaccination against coronavirus.

“Each country develops its own requirements and approaches to the mutual recognition of vaccination passports against coronavirus. We are working on this,” said Tsoy.

At the same time, he said that by this hour Kazakhstan already has mutual recognition of vaccination passports with a number of states. These include Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, India, Moldova, Thailand, Turkey, Belarus, the Philippines, as well as Vietnam, Egypt and Oman.

“Now we are working in stages with each state. You see that every time more and more states recognize our vaccination passports. This work continues,” said the head of the Ministry of Healthcare.

The minister also specified that vaccines produced in Kazakhstan will remain free vaccines.

“We assume that since we in Kazakhstan can independently produce our own vaccine, which has proven clinical efficacy, independently of other countries, we will purchase this vaccine from ourselves within a free guaranteed volume,” Tsoy said.

At the same time, the rest of the vaccines, as well as today for the rest of the vaccinations for influenza, will be admitted to commercial circulation, that is, on the market.

“We are now campaigning for companies so that they can supply these vaccines to the Kazakhstan market and offer their services,” the Minister of Healthcare said.

Vice Minister of Healthcare, Chief State Sanitary Doctor of Kazakhstan Yerlan Kiyasov informed that after vaccination, 21,813 people fell ill. Of these, the largest number of cases after the vaccine: Sputnik V — 18 thousand, after QazCovid-In — 436 people, after Sinopharm — 2,173, after CoronaVac — 603.

According to Kiyasov, there is also data on the sick after the vaccine from Pfizer. After being vaccinated with this vaccine, 17 people fell ill with the coronavirus, who, according to the chief government doctor, received Pfizer abroad.

In turn, Vice Minister of Healthcare Azhar Giniyat said that people, after suffering COVID-19 for more than 12 weeks, complain of complications from the cardiovascular, nervous and endocrine systems.

“Doctors see that there are complications from the cardiovascular system — myocarditis, cardiac arrhythmias and pericarditis are developing. They see disturbances from the endocrine system, diabetes mellitus develops, and a dysfunction of the thyroid gland is recorded. There are disorders of the nervous system — these are the cognitive impairments that we are talking about: apathy, long-term weakness, sleep disturbance,” she added. “For such patients, the country has developed a clinical protocol for the treatment of postcovid syndrome or long-term course of coronavirus disease. These disorders are treated by a multidisciplinary team of physicians including pulmonologists, cardiologists and neurologists. Today doctors have such a protocol and treatment has already begun,” Giniyat said.

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