COVID-19 vaccine

A contract has been signed to buy a Chinese vaccine developed against COVID-19 and 10 million doses of the injection are already on their way to Turkey, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said.

Talks with Sinovac, the Chinese developer of the vaccine, and necessary legal procedures have been concluded, Koca told daily Hürriyet.

"There is reason for optimism that the vaccine will be approved in Europe this year. And then we can start immediately," Spahn said in an interview with the German RND.
He added that he asked the federal German states to prepare vaccination centers by mid-December, Reuters reports.

AstraZeneca said on Monday its vaccine for the novel coronavirus could be around 90% effective without any serious side effects, the latest drugmaker to unveil positive interim data in a scientific race to curb a global pandemic.

Leaders of the world's most powerful nations wrapped up the Group of 20 summit on Nov. 22, vowing to spare no effort to protect lives and ensure affordable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all people.

Thousands of citizens have already applied to take part in the tests for a candidate COVID-19 vaccine being developed by China, the country's health minister has said.

The officials on Nov. 20 announced that applications from ordinary citizens would be collected from citizens for the Chinese jab, whose phase three trials on volunteer health workers began in mid-September in Turkey.

G20 nations emphasized the need for global access to coronavirus vaccines at a Saudi-hosted virtual summit on Nov. 21 dominated by efforts to tackle the pandemic and the worst global recession in decades.

French President Emmanuel Macron told the G20 summit on Saturday that the world's leading economies should join efforts to create a system that envisions disturbing first doses of potential coronavirus vaccines to least developed countries.

Today, the European Commission has reached a first agreement with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to purchase a potential vaccine against COVID-19 as well as to donate to lower and middle income countries or re-direct to other European countries.

The European Commission has concluded exploratory talks with Johnson & Johnson to buy 200 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, the EU executive and the U.S. pharmaceutical company said on Thursday.

Russia raised eyebrows on Tuesday when it announced the world's first approved coronavirus vaccine for public use.