BIONTECH

Turkey will give a dose of a locally developed COVID-19 vaccine, Turkovac, to those who have already received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said.

Professor of Health Policy at LSE Elias Mosialos wrote on the approval of the coronavirus vaccine for children and specifically for the ages of 5 to 11 years, the , by posting an extended message on his personal Facebook account.

Prof. Mosialos refers to the clinical trials that were carried out until the licensing of vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 years.

The next three months will be crucial for efforts to confront challenges from the Omicron strain of COVID-19, a health expert has said, calling for speeding up the drive to give booster shoots.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca last week announced the first cases of the Omicron variant in Turkey.

Three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine appear effective against the Omicron variant, a lab test indicated - encouraging news, even as Denmark and Britain announced new restrictions to stem surging caseloads.

The coronavirus variant Omicron may partially evade protection from two doses of vaccine produced by Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech, Alex Seagal, head of research at a South African laboratory, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The immune response in people who received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines from Astra Zeneca and Biontech / Pfizer with Moderna was higher, according to a large British study.

Turkey aims to vaccinate more than 80 percent of the population against COVID-19, Professor Alper Şen from the Health Ministry's Science Board has said.

The vaccine drive is not moving at the desired speed, but still the vaccination rate in Turkey is higher than many countries in Europe, according to Şen.

Australia on Dec. 5 cleared the first COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11, with the next stage of its vaccine rollout expected to start in early 2022.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said medical regulators had granted provisional approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be administered to younger children for the first time.

German biotech company BioNTech should be able to adapt its coronavirus vaccine relatively quickly in response to the Omicron variant, said its CEO Ugur Shahin, adding that despite the mutations, the vaccines must continue to protect people against serious illness.

Turkey is closely following developments in the wake of the emergence of the new COVID-19 strain, Omicron, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said, adding that the current situation does not necessitate taking additional measures.

He recalled that Turkey immediately acted after the new variant was detected in the world and imposed travel bans on certain countries.