Turkey rolls out local vaccine Turkovac

Turkey's locally developed vaccine against COVID-19, Turkovac, which received emergency use authorization last week has started being offered to the public.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca and the members of the Health Ministry’s Science Board got their Turkovac jabs on Dec. 29.

“I strongly urge people to receive the Turkovac vaccine, especially as the booster shot,” Koca said as he was given his dose of the jab at the Ankara City Hospital, noting the threats from the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Up until now, the country was using the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and the Chinese company Sinovac in its jab drive which was launched in January.

“I have not had received any shots. I waited for Turkovac to be put in use and during this period I tried to protect myself,” said Nail Ergin, who got his dose of the homegrown vaccine at a hospital in Istanbul.

To date, more than 130 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Turkey with the number of people given the booster shots exceeding 18 million.

More than 51 million people have been double jabbed and nearly 57 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine.