Turkey expects to receive the first batch of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine by December 31. This was stated by the President of the country Recep Tayyip Erdogan , the Daily Sabah newspaper reports.
Initially, Ankara expected to receive the first batch of the drug from the Chinese company Sinovac on Monday, December 28, but the delivery was postponed for several days. It is expected that three million doses of the Chinese vaccine will be delivered to Turkey by the end of the year.
Turkey plans to receive 50 million doses of Sinovac vaccine in total. The country also agreed to purchase 4.5 million doses of vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer , with the possibility of receiving an additional 30 million doses later.
Earlier, there were reports that Turkey refused to purchase Russian vaccine against coronavirus as it is not in accordance with good laboratory practice. However, soon the head of Ministry of Health Turkey Fahrettin Koca denied this information and confirmed that if the Russian vaccine successfully passes laboratory practice in toxicology, the country will consider the possibility of its use.