AKIPRESS.COM - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Culture will work together to increase vaccine intake in Batken, Jalal-Abad, Chuy Oblasts, and Bishkek. This will include training medical specialists, engaging local community activists, and conducting campaigns to inform the public about the benefits of vaccination against COVID-19. These measures were the central topic of a November 10 partners’ meeting devoted to the Kyrgyz Republic’s COVID-19 response.

During the meeting, USAID presented epidemiological data, successful strategies for managing human resources for health, and for engaging communities to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and increase vaccine uptake.

Earlier, vaccination information campaigns and community mobilization efforts supported by USAID accelerated vaccine coverage in three districts of the Chui region by 8 percent. Going forward, USAID will increase vaccine coverage in Batken, Jalal-Abad, Chuy oblasts, as well as Bishkek city, all of which have low vaccine uptake, to ensure that critical for help preventing new COVID-19 variants that could threaten the health of Kyrgyzstanis.

According to USAID’s Director of Health and Education, Nisha Gupta, as part of the U.S. government’s partnership with the Kyrgyz Republic in the fight against COVID-19, 4,000 doctors, lab workers, and other medical staff received training to improve detection, prevention, and treatment of COVID-19. It also included $1.4 million of equipment that strengthened medical institutions’ capacity to diagnose COVID-19 and other communicable diseases and prevent their spread.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, USAID has provided more than $10 million overall to help the Kyrgyz Republic in its COVID-19 response. The United States has also donated over 450,000 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses through the COVAX facility.