Sefa Sahin
16 January 2021•Update: 17 January 2021
ANKARA
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay on Saturday received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine at the Ankara City Hospital.
After being vaccinated, Oktay told reporters Turkey is among top countries in terms of vaccination although it has just started.
He expressed hope that Turkey’s own COVID-19 vaccines would be available in April.
The vice president urged all citizens to get vaccinated, saying this is extremely important both for individual and public health, as well as for normalization.
The first batch of 3 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech arrived in Turkey on Dec. 30.
Two doses of the vaccine will be administered 28 days apart. Those who recovered from COVID-19 will not be vaccinated in four to six months following their recovery.
Turkey has been implementing curfews on both weeknights and weekends since last month as part of efforts to curb the spread of the virus.
This week President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that restrictions will be eased gradually as COVID-19 cases have been significantly decreasing recently.
Since December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed almost 2 million lives in 191 countries and regions.
Over 93.96 million cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries now over 51.80 million, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.
The US, India, and Brazil remain the worst-hit countries in terms of cases.
