ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey has started administering its COVID-19 vaccine, Turkovac, to hospitals across the country amid a rapid rise in Omicron variant infections.
More than 130 million doses of the vaccines developed by the Chinese company Sinovac and Pfizer / BioNTech have already been administered, and a recall campaign has started.
Turkovac was urgently cleared last week by Turkish authorities, after its launch was delayed for several months.
The number of infections in the country rose 30% on Monday before surpassing 36,000 cases on Wednesday, the highest daily figure since April 29.
“Our national Turkovac vaccine will begin to be administered in our city hospitals from (Thursday),” Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said in a statement released after a meeting of the coronavirus scientific council on Wednesday.
“It is possible to receive the booster shot with our national vaccine. No matter what type of vaccine you have received before, you can receive your booster dose with Turkovac,” he added.
President Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly said his government will make Turkovac available worldwide. Ankara has yet to release detailed information on the vaccine’s efficacy rate or clinical trial results.
(Tuvan Gumrukcu report, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Sophie Louet)
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