Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca shows a vial of the Turkovac vaccine at a vaccine manufacturing center in Sanliurfa province, Turkey, on Dec. 22, 2021. (Xinhua)
ISTANBUL, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Turkey started on Thursday to roll out its first locally developed COVID-19 vaccine Turkovac, while the Omicron variant becomes widespread across the country.
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said the previous day that the vaccine would be available at city hospitals, and citizens could have their booster doses with Turkovac no matter what their previous vaccinations were.
Istanbul's Cam and Sakura city hospital has been observing quite a busy day with people flocking to have their shots with Turkovac, the deputy director of the hospital told Xinhua.
A Turkish man gets his Turkovac vaccine dose at a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, on Dec. 30, 2021. (Xinhua)
The hospital officials expect to administer 1,000 doses of Turkovac during the day.
Turkey launched its mass vaccination program against COVID-19 in January with the vaccine developed by China's Sinovac company, and it later introduced jabs from Pfizer/BioNTech in the drive.
Over 131 million vaccine doses have been administered in the country to date, and the vaccination rate of people aged 18 and over who have got two shots surpassed 83 percent, the latest data of the health ministry revealed.
However, despite the high vaccination rate, the daily new COVID-19 cases have been following an upward trend for the last week, increasing from 18,000 to more than 36,000 on Wednesday.
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca (R, front) visits a Turkovac vaccine manufacturing center in Sanliurfa province, Turkey, on Dec. 22, 2021. (Xinhua)
According to Koca, the main reason behind the hike in the number of cases was the increase in the time spent indoors and the rapid spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Koca added that the increase of the daily cases has not yet been reflected in the hospitalization rate, calling on people to urgently get their booster jabs. ■
