Turkish president says preparations continue for mass vaccination

Istanbul, Turkey | THE INDEPENDENT |   Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday the mass vaccination process against the COVID-19 pandemic would soon start.

Speaking to reporters in Istanbul after Friday prayers, Erdogan said that Turkey’s Health Ministry has been continuing its works to launch the vaccination process in line with a calendar.

“Currently, we have three (vaccine) sources, namely from China, Germany, and our domestic (products),” Erdogan said.

The first shipment of 3 million doses of China’s SinoVac COVID-19 vaccine had arrived in the Turkish capital Ankara on Dec. 30, 2020.

Erdogan noted that Turkish authorities are also in talks with the Germany-based BioNTech to obtain its COVID-19 vaccine.

The Turkish Health Ministry had earlier announced that Turkey would purchase up to 30 million doses of BioNTech’s vaccine, which was developed jointly with the U.S. firm Pfizer.

Erdogan noted that “we will obtain the vaccines and medicines at all costs.”

Turkey’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has recently sent a notification, which included the details of the process, to all the provinces and asked both public and private health centers to reserve proper vaccination areas.

Meanwhile, the trials of Turkish-made COVID-19 vaccines are still going on.

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XINHUA