BIONTECH

Scientists Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, a Turkish-German couple who are the cofounders of BioNTech, the first effective COVID-19 vaccine that saved millions of lives, have said they are planning to start clinical studies in Türkiye next year under the BioNTech brand.

A total of 7,556 COVID-19 cases were reported in Turkey between June 6 and 12, the Health Ministry said in its weekly coronavirus statistics. 

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca had previously announced that the ministry would stop publishing daily statistics after the number of cases started to decline.

The Turkish-German couple, who invented BioNTech, the first effective vaccine against COVID-19, with the U.S. giant Pfizer and saved millions of lives, has now succeeded in developing a vaccine that prevents pancreatic cancer from reforming.

Caseloads of hospitals across the country are declining as the COVID-19 pandemic is weakening by the day, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said, warning that people, especially the elderly, still need to get their booster shots against the virus.

China is battling its biggest spike in coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, with millions under lockdown and the healthcare system feeling the pressure.

One of the last countries sticking to a zero-Covid strategy, China aims to stamp out every infection with strict lockdowns and by sending all cases to secure facilities.

More than 85 percent of the adult population in Turkey has been double jabbed and it is a "significant success," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said.

Nearly 53 million people aged 18 and above have been given two doses of the vaccine against COVID-19, according to data from the Health Ministry.

Serbian Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar said its country accepted the "serious responsibility" it was being given after the WHO on Wednesday approved Serbia to produce RNA vaccines, which include Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines, but also vaccines made for other illnesses besides COVID-19.

Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has urged people to get Turkovac shots, the locally developed vaccine against COVICD-19, saying that it is already available in all 81 provinces of the county.

China on Feb. 12 said it had given "conditional" approval for Pfizer's Covid-19 drug Paxlovid to treat adults with mild to moderate illness and a high risk of developing severe disease.

Pfizer yesterday applied to the US Medicines Agency to allow the emergency use of the vaccine produced by the company to children aged 6 months to 4 years, AFP and Reuters reported.