'Turkey to get 100M COVID vaccine doses by May end'

By Burak Bir

ANKARA (AA) - A total of 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are expected to arrive in Turkey by the end of May, the country's health minister said on Thursday.

Speaking after a virtual meeting of the Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board, Fahrettin Koca said that so far 1.4 million Pfizer-BioNTech jabs have arrived in Turkey, and the figure will reach 4.5 million by April.

He added that an optional deal for another 30 million shots from Pfizer-BioNTech has also been made.

"Turkey has started phase 1 trials of virus-like particle vaccine today – one of the most innovative vaccine candidates in the world," the minister said.

Saying that Turkey has made significant progress in developing indigenous COVID-19 vaccines, Koca shared that one candidate, developed by Turkey's Erciyes University, will enter phase 3 trials by the end of April as the last volunteer will get the second dose on April 9.