May 18: Kazakhstan recently became the target of the media regarding biological labs in the country and its usage. With growing concerns, the Foreign Ministry decided to put an end to all gossips.
In their recent release the ministry said
The Republic of Kazakhstan is an active advocate of the global process of disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a responsible party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CWC), the Convention on the Prohibition of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons (BTWC), The 1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare and other fundamental international instruments”.
Biosecurity issues are an integral part of the general national security system. Unfortunately, there are natural hotbeds of dangerous infections for humans and animals in Kazakhstan, such as plague, tularemia, brucellosis and others.
The construction of the Central Reference Laboratory (CRL) at the NSCEDI has become one of the major instruments for strengthening biological security, national scientific and production potential.
The CRL was created as part of the WMD Infrastructure Elimination Agreement between Kazakhstan and the United States. Funding was provided through the US Department of Defense under the Nunn-Lugar Program, which made a significant contribution to strengthening the WMD nonproliferation regime in Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
Any work carried out by the CRL is controlled by the ministries of health, education and science, agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Its activity is focused on ensuring biological safety and security in Kazakhstan, carrying out fundamental and applied research.
We declare responsibly that no biological weapons development is underway in Kazakhstan, no research is conducted against any other states.
The CRL significantly strengthened the scientific potential of Kazakhstan, increased the safety of research. The presence of such high-tech facilities reflects the level of development of the state and its ability to respond adequately to biological threats. Now that the healthcare system of the Republic of Kazakhstan is focused on fighting COVID-19, CRL makes an important contribution to reducing the spread of the disease. The laboratory has developed domestic test systems to detect a new infection.
