Minister urges people to get Turkovac shots

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has urged people to get Turkovac shots, the locally developed vaccine against COVICD-19, saying that it is already available in all 81 provinces of the county.

The vaccine has started to be distributed to all districts and two weeks later the family health centers will also receive the shots, Koca said in a statement released after a meeting of the Health Ministry’s Science Board, which advises the government on the pandemic.

“Getting the local vaccine is highly recommended to all our citizens,” the minister said.

Koca also noted that Turkey has already started to use the antiviral medication with the active ingredient Molnupiravir in the treatment of COVID-19 patients who are aged 65 and above as well as those that are immunosuppressed.

The use of the antiviral drug and booster shots will significantly reduce the deaths from the virus, the minister said.

Koca reiterated that the number of cases triggered by the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has been on the decline.

“Infections in Istanbul, where most of the Omicron-related cases were seen, have dropped 62 percent in the past 10 days. Other cities see a similar trend. Significant declines in cases are expected in the next two weeks,” the minister said.

[HH] ‘World is better prepared’

Meanwhile, Uğur Şahin, CEO and co-founder of the German vaccine-maker BioNTech, said the world is becoming better prepared to deal with future variants of the coronavirus.

“We will have to get used to the fact that we will have to live with the virus for the next 10 years,” Şahin told AFP.

New virus variants were inevitable “because the virus will mutate further,” he said, potentially leading to new flare-ups in cases

But the world was “entering a phase where society is getting a better understanding on how to deal with the virus,” Şahin said.