Over 650,000 health care workers in Turkey have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the first three days of the vaccination campaign in the country.
Turkey started administering the CoronaVac vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech company to health care staff on Jan. 14.
The first batch of 3 million doses of the vaccine 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.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay also received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 16 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.
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 Erdoğan 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.
