Sinovac

Within the scope of expanding Turkey's vaccination program, the Health Ministry has added more chronic illnesses to its list of vaccine priority, giving vaccination appointments to those over the age of 20 suffering from blood pressure, diabetes, heart, or kidney diseases.

Turkey will receive 12 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech by the end of next week, the country's health minister has said.

Fahrettin Koca said he spoke with Uğur Şahin, the co-founder of CEO of Germany-based BioNTech, earlier this week and that Şahin confirmed that they obtained export permission for 12 million doses of the injection.

Turkey has signed an agreement for the procurement of over 90 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines, the country's Health Minister has said.

In June, some 30 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech jabs will arrive in Turkey, and the deliveries will continue in July, August, and September, Fahrettin Koca told reporters.

Turkey is expanding the scope of its vaccination program against COVID-19 by starting to inoculate spouses of health care professionals, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has announced.

"We are moving to a new phase in the vaccination program. Spouses of health care workers will be able to make an appointment for the virus jab starting May 13," Koca wrote on Twitter on May 12.

Sinovac, the Chinese producer of a COVID-19 vaccine, has provided a license to Turkey to manufacturing the jabs.

The company's CEO Yin Weidong said Turkey was among five countries given a production license for the vaccine, along with Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, and Egypt, according to Bloomberg.

Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank has volunteered to take part in the phase 1 human trial of a vaccine candidate against COVID-19 that is being developed at Ankara Oncology Hospital.

Varank received the first shot of the vaccine based on virus-like particles' technology.

Turkey has ramped up "vaccine diplomacy" and the work on developing the country's own injection against COVID-19 is making progress, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said, as the number of daily infections continues to rise.

Vaccine hesitancy is currently running high in Turkey and creating serious risks at a time when the virus cases continue to hover at record levels in the country, experts have warned.

Some 25 percent of the people who are entitled to receive COVID-19 jabs are avoiding the inoculation and most of those are women, according to experts.

More transmittable virus variants are now accounting for 80 percent of all COVID-19 cases across Turkey, which has been experiencing a significant surge in the number of infections over the past weeks.

The rate is around 70 percent for Istanbul, the country's largest city by population, which was once the epicenter of the outbreak in Turkey.

Turkey is ramping up its vaccination drive against COVID-19 by adding people aged over 60 and some risk groups with underlying conditions to the program, the country's health minister has announced.