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| - Kazakhstan posted its highest daily number of coronavirus cases Friday, as a slow vaccine rollout stokes fears of another nightmare summer in former Soviet Central Asia. According to official statistics the country posted 2,077 new cases on Friday, a record since the beginning of the pandemic. The largest city Almaty, an overall leader in terms of cases, last month broke its coronavirus cases record several times, as health officials warned that fast-spreading British and South African strains of the disease were now in the country. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev strongly criticised his government's slow vaccine rollout of a locally produced version of Russia's Sputnik V jab on Thursday, noting that only 47,000 people in the country of 19 million people had been fully vaccinated. "The reason is simple. Not enough vaccines," he said, complaining that the situation meant Kazakhstan was "forced to agree to unfavourable commercial and financial conditions to accelerate deliveries". Officially just 3,078 people have died with the coronavirus in Kazakhstan. But official mortality data indicates that in the three months of last summer when the disease ravaged the country, deaths were up by 28,000 compared to the same period the year before -- an 85 percent increase. Neighbours Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan showed similar disparities between official coronavirus deaths and excess mortality. Tajikistan paused its official count at 13,308 cases and 90 deaths in January, while closed-off Turkmenistan has insisted it has zero cases since the beginning of the pandemic. The tightly controlled gas-rich republic's claim has been undermined by foreign media reports on prominent Turkmen figures who have died with the virus and the British ambassador admitting he contracted the virus while inside the country. dr-cr/mm/wdb
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