U.S. Assistance to Kazakhstan for the COVID-19 Crisis

Speeches Shim

The United States Government has supported the Government of Kazakhstan’s efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing life-saving equipment, laboratory and medical supplies and technical assistance. 

As of November 4 2020, this assistance totals approximately $6.2 million as detailed below.

  • The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been committed to help Kazakhstan respond to the COVID-19 outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic. This assistance supports four broad areas: community engagement to increase public awareness and combat disinformation; skills training for health providers to adapt to COVID-specific needs in infection prevention and control, case management; updating clinical protocols; and procuring personal protective equipment (PPE), essential laboratory and testing equipment to the most needed areas throughout the country. 
  • The United States through USAID allocated $2.7 million to the USAID Local Health System Sustainability program to provide timely and quality support in the fight against COVID-19. Throughout Kazakhstan, the program provides technical assistance to the Ministry of Health counterparts to manage laboratories and to improve case management for clients, collaborates with local national institutions and leadership to identify the needed materials as part of the National Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan and coordination process. More than ten regions in Kazakhstan, including national leading centers, benefited from the USAID Local Health System Sustainability program’s procured essential laboratory supplies, laboratory reagents for accurate laboratory testing of COVID-19, as well as essential laboratory equipment to ensure accurate laboratory procedures and maintain infection control measures.
  • USAID provided $500,000 to UNICEF COVID-19 preventing and responding activities in Kazakhstan to reduce human-to-human transmissions of COVID-19 and mitigating the impact of the outbreak through risk communication and community engagement; on provision of critical supplies for multi-graded schools, where the learning process is not suspended; on improved infection prevention and control, water, sanitation and hygiene services, and enhanced data collection and analysis in Kazakhstan. One hundred fourteen (114) social media posts with life-saving information and COVID preventive practices were published that reached across all platforms around 300,000 people. Over 194,000 children attending 2,830 multi-graded rural remote schools benefited from the supplies, information and education materials via 84,900 posters with messages on safety measures to prevent COVID-19 and popularize hand-washing practices. Support is provided to families in difficult life situation in partnership with community-based organization; 246 management, staff and psychologists of Youth Resource Centres benefited from strengthened capacity to provide remote psychological support to adolescents and youth; over 570 health care workers of perinatal centres across 17 regions of Kazakhstan were trained on infection prevention and control and water, sanitation and hygiene.
  • USAID provided $351,280 to International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society (IFRC) to combat COVID-19 pandemic, in collaboration with Kazakhstan Red Crescent Society to raise public awareness about the prevention measures of COVID-19, including the importance of personal hygiene, prevention of myths by providing evidence-based information about COVID-19. More than 1,000 trained volunteers across Kazakhstan have been mobilized to support these efforts in coordination with local government and health authorities. There have been 5,479 posters placed nationwide; distributed 574,797 leaflets; there were 2,437 posts made in social media (Facebook, Instagram, VK); reaching a total of 3,711,226 people since the start of the project. For infection prevention and control, IFRC in collaboration with national leading institutions provides trainings to healthcare providers on biosafety principles and infection control when working with COVID-19 patients. A total of 19 trainings for 512 healthcare providers have been conducted to date.
  • In April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pledged $1.68 million to address the most urgent needs of the coronavirus pandemic including the procurement of laboratory supplies and equipment for COVID-19 testing, organization of trainings for public health workers, technical assistance for border health activities, as well as help to develop and implement clinical protocols.
  • At the start of the pandemic, the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency was the first foreign partner responding to urgent requests from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense for timely needed COVID-19 support, providing $32,000 of personal protective equipment.

Over the last 20 years, the United States has invested $2 billion in Kazakhstan, including more than $86 million in health assistance to prevent the spread of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.