Azerbaijan grants Turkey permission to conduct Covid vaccine trials in the country

Azerbaijan has given the green light for the third phase of Turkey’s homegrown Covid-19 vaccine trials to be held in the country, Baku’s Acting Health Minister Teymur Musayev said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a briefing, Musayev said that the relevant documentation for Turkovac has been prepared and presented to Azerbaijan.

“The documentation has been reviewed,” the acting health minister said, adding that permission was granted “to conduct the third phase of clinical trials of the Turkish vaccine against COVID-19 in Azerbaijan. A working group is expected to arrive from Turkey. Afterward, tests will begin.”

Last week, Turkey launched mass production of its domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine Turkovac after receiving emergency approval following studies on volunteers that demonstrated its efficacy.

Turkey quickly took action once the country’s first coronavirus case was reported in March 2020 and launched studies to develop its first vaccine to combat the outbreak.

With this latest development, Turkey has become the ninth country in the world that is capable of producing its own COVID-19 vaccine.

With its domestic vaccine, Turkey aims to end its dependency on foreign actors with regards to the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines and help distribute vaccines to countries that have not yet had access to them.