Turkey starts human trials for homegrown COVID-19 shot

By Burak Bir and Dilara Hamit

ANKARA (AA) - Efforts in Turkey to develop an indigenous vaccine against the novel coronavirus have reached the human trials stage, the country's top health official said Saturday.

Speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the phone, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said three other vaccine efforts in Turkey would also reach this point in the next seven to 10 days.

Turkey reported 1,502 new novel coronavirus patients and 1,211 recoveries over the past 24 hours, the country's Health Ministry said on Saturday.

The country's overall case count now stands at 323,014, with recoveries totaling 283,868, according to Health Ministry data.

Some 103,219 more coronavirus tests were conducted over the past 24 hours, bringing the overall tally to over 10.71 million.

The death toll from the virus reached 8,384, with 59 more fatalities.

The figures also showed that 6.4% of patients suffer from pneumonia.

Across the world, COVID-19 has claimed more than a million lives in 188 countries and regions since last December.

The US, India, and Brazil are currently the worst-hit countries.

Over 34.68 million cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries surpassing 24 million, according to figures compiled by the US-based Johns Hopkins University.