Turkish Health minister, WHO chief meet in Geneva

By Omer Faruk Yildiz

GENEVA (AA) – The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Turkish health minister on Monday met in Geneva as part of 75th World Health Assembly.

​​​​​​Fahrettin Koca told WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that Turkiye is trying to help low- and middle-income countries get access to COVID-19 vaccines, and is focusing on Africa in this context.

Ghebreyesus for his part said he is pleased that Turkiye produced the COVID-19 vaccine Turkovac. He added that the BioNTech vaccine can also be considered a Turkish vaccine since it was developed by scientists Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, a Turkish-German immigrant couple.

During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Turkiye has donated nearly 7 million vaccine doses to 19 countries, according to the nation’s Foreign Ministry.