Medical research

Turkish scientists Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, the co-founders of BioNTech, have announced that their cancer vaccine has succeeded in halting tumor growth and reducing its size in their initial tests.

Uğur Şahin, one of BioNTech's co-founders, has announced that their company's cancer treatment medicine will hit the shelves as early as 2026.

Şahin, who has been working with his wife Dr. Özlem Türeci for many years on treatments targeting various types of cancers, especially bowel cancer, stated that the drugs they have developed could be on the market in a few years.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said it plans a cost-cutting operation if its co-developed with BioTech COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral treatment for the coronavirus continue to underperform in the coming months due to falling demand.

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.

Brussels/Ljubljana – Ten EU member states, including Slovenia, have called on the European Commission to amend contracts for the supply of Covid vaccines to reduce the number of doses ordered. They warn about the issue of vaccine surpluses and the need for a better management of public funds.

The new cases of coronavirus in Bulgaria for the last 24 hours are 439 with 6373 tests performed, according to the data published on the Unified Information Portal. This is about 7 percent of the samples tested.

In the last 24 hours, 12 people have died from covid, and 58.33 percent of them have not been vaccinated.

Another 669 people have been infected with coronavirus in Bulgaria in the last 24 hours, according to the Unified Information Portal. Of these, 65.47 percent have not been vaccinated.

The cases yesterday were 895.

Six people died, and 83.33 percent of those who died were not vaccinated.

After two years of competing for vaccination against covid in the world, the number of available vaccines is already exceeding their demand. However, there remains a huge difference in vaccination levels between the richest and poorest countries, writes AFP.

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.

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.