Turkey donates 200,000 vaccine jabs to African countries

ANKARA

Turkey has donated 200,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Burkina Faso and Togo, two Western African countries where the effects of the pandemic have had more troubling consequences than the rest of the world, in a campaign by the Organization of Turkic States.

Of the more than 600,000 vaccine doses donated overall, 200,000 were Sinovac jabs allocated by Turkey, another 200,000 Sinovac jabs were allocated by Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, while 211,200 were Sinopharm jabs that were allocated by Hungary, according to a statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

Vaccines donated by the Turkic states were sent to the two Western African countries yesterday by a military cargo plane, said in the statement.

A total of 400,000 Sinovac doses were delivered to Burkina Faso, while 211,200 doses of Sinopharm vaccine were sent to Togo, it said.

“There is hope after despair and many suns after darkness,” a quote originally penned by Mevlana Jalaleddin Rumi, a 13th-century Sufi mystic and poet, was inscribed on the crates of aid.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the decision to donate vaccines to the countries in the region during his visit to some African countries in Oct. 2021.

He also said at the eighth Summit of the Organization of Turkic States that vaccine aid will be provided to Africa on behalf of the organization.