As prospective vaccines make headlines worldwide, Turkey is planning to unveil its own local coronavirus vaccine by April, the country’s president said on Wednesday.
FIRST SHOTS OF THE NEW VACCINES EXPECTED TO BE GIVEN BY THE END OF NOVEMBER
“We’ve made good progress on our local vaccine. We plan to bring our own vaccine to market by April at the latest,” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the Justice and Development (AK) Party’s parliamentary group.
Turkey is closely following vaccine developments in China, Russia, the US, and Europe, the president said. “We’ve already given pre-orders for some of them. We hope to give first shots of the vaccines by the end of this month,” he said.
The vaccines should be used for the common good of humanity regardless of political differences or commercial interests, said Erdoğan. “We believe it makes no sense for individual countries to secure themselves before the whole world is freed from the epidemic threat,” he said, in what seemed to be a jab at developed nations.
Clinical tests of the Turkish vaccine are progressing smoothly, with none of the volunteers exhibiting any side effects, according to recent reports.
To date some 44 volunteers are taking part in Phase 1 trials of the Turkish ERUCOV-VAC vaccine.