Vaccine scientists to join UNGA session on COVID-19

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish president of the 75th UN General Assembly (UNGA) said Monday the two Turkish-German scientists, who achieved a breakthrough with developing the world's first effective coronavirus vaccine, accepted to join a special session on the virus.

"Pleasure to meet Prof. Dr. Uğur Şahin & Dr. Özlem Türeci, scientist couple who developed a #COVID19 vaccine. We had an insightful discussion on the path to recovery," Volkan Bozkir said in a tweet where he shared the picture of the video call.

"They accepted my invitation to join as speakers on #UNGA Special session on #COVID19 on 3-4 Dec."

The pharmaceutical company BioNTech, which Dr. Sahin and Dr. Tureci, founded in 2008, managed to develop an experimental vaccine together with its American partner Pfizer which was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19.

Both Sahin and Tureci were born to immigrant parents from Turkey who moved to Germany in the 1960s.

If regulatory approval is obtained, BioNTech and Pfizer are planning to manufacture up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020 and potentially more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.