Turkey will begin administering COVID-19 vaccines as of Thursday or Friday, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, adding that Ankara would also gradually lift restrictive measures as daily infections declined.
Turkey has agreed to purchase 50 million doses of Sinovac's CoronaVac vaccine and has taken delivery of an initial shipment of 3 million doses. It has also agreed to procure 4.5 million doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, with an option to procure 30 million more doses later.
Speaking after a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said the vaccination process would begin either on Thursday or Friday in line with the vaccination program set out by the government.