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Since 2021, the Biosafety Coordination Committee has been operating within the Collective Security Treaty Organization
Worldwide, biosecurity issues are particularly relevant to the threats posed by infectious diseases and their pathogens, which are becoming global, primarily the coronavirus COVID-19. Kazakhstan News Agency published information on the cooperation between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in this regard.
Biosafety is an important issue for the international community. Governments around the world are taking security measures to counter biological threats. Against this background, in recent years, some foreign media and social networks have spread information about the alleged deployment of American laboratories on the territory of Kazakhstan for the development of biological weapons. In 2022, this news resonated with the Kyrgyz public, who were opposed to the construction of a laboratory for the study of particularly dangerous strains in the Republic of Kazakhstan, close to the border of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As reported by Stopfake.kz, this information was refuted by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In addition, the director of the State Scientific Center for Particularly Dangerous Infections. M. Aikimbaeva (Almaty) Zauresh Zhumadilova also officially assured at a meeting with the Kyrgyz Biosafety Experts Group that there are no American biological laboratories with foreign experts in Kazakhstan.
Since 2021, the Coordination Committee of Authorized Bodies on Biosafety Issues of the CSTO Member States, including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, has been operating within the framework of the CSTO. Its tasks include coordinating activities and cooperation in the field of prevention and response to biological threats in order to establish a reliable system to ensure biosafety in the CSTO member states.
In September, Kazakhstan, as the rotating chairman of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, will hold the fourth meeting of the Coordination Committee of the CSTO member states’ authorized bodies on biosafety issues. In 2025, the chairmanship of the organization will be transferred to Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have already begun to actively carry out bilateral work.
In July this year, at the invitation of Kazakhstan, a Kyrgyz delegation consisting of representatives of government agencies and the expert community visited the Central Reference Laboratory of the National Scientific Center for Special Dangerous Infections. M. Aikimbaev (NNTSOOI). The delegation members learned about the activities and capabilities of the research and development center, carried out scientific research, and trained experts in biosafety and biosecurity. This expert meeting marked a new stage in the cooperation between the two countries on biosafety issues. As part of the agreement on further cooperation and deepening of joint work in the field of biosafety, the National Scientific Center for Special Dangerous Infections and a memorandum of cooperation were signed by M. Aikimbaev of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic Center for Quarantine and Special Dangerous Infectious Diseases of the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic.
The main areas of bilateral interaction between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan within the framework of the present document are surveillance, exchange of updated information and experience in combating particularly dangerous infections, training of specialized experts and advanced training of personnel, conduct of scientific research in the fields of epidemiology, infectious diseases and particularly dangerous infections, biosafety and bioprotection.
In order to improve the skills of personnel and solve emerging problems, the NHO leadership invited Kyrgyz colleagues from the Republic Center for Quarantine and Particularly Dangerous Infectious Diseases of the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic to participate in the upcoming international scientific seminar in Almaty on September 24-25, within the framework of the panel meeting “Consolidating efforts to combat transboundary infectious diseases” on the theme “Biosecurity and sustainable development: a strategic approach”.
All these measures are aimed at implementing the initiative to establish an international biosafety agency at the United Nations level.
Let us recall that since 2020, Kazakhstan has been promoting the initiative of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Tokayev to establish a special multilateral body responsible to the UN Security Council – the International Biosafety Agency and to guide its activities the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction.
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