The 5th Video-Conference Meeting of the Health Scientific Group of the Turkic Council held on 24 December 2020 in order to follow-up the decisions taken at the previous meetings and sharing the experience of the Turkish side in the Covid-19 treatment and process related to vaccination.
The meeting was moderated by Ömer Kocaman, Deputy Secretary General of the Turkic Council and attended by Prof. Dr. Emine Alp Meşe, Deputy Minister of Health of the Republic of Turkey and Chair of the Health Scientific Group, Dr. Viktor Gasimov, Deputy Minister and Chief Sanitary Doctor of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Bakyt Dzangaziev, Deputy Minister of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic, Members of the Health Scientific Group and high level officials from the Member States.
Deputy Secretary General Kocaman briefed the participants on the latest developments and activities conducted by the Secretariat and the cooperation between the Turkic Council and World Health Organization in the field of Health.
Deputy Minister Alp Meşe provided information on the latest developments in the vaccine studies in Turkey and stated that Turkey has one of the most-developed Vaccine Tracking System in the world and the Turkish side is ready to share information and assist the Member States regarding the System. Deputy Minister further informed the participants that the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Turkey is preparing a website for the all issues and questions related to the vaccine for the Covid-19 and the website will be in the use of the public in a short span of time.
Prof. Dr. Arzu Topeli İskit from Hacettepe University made a presentation regarding the “Treatment of the Covid-19 patients in the intensive care units” and provided detailed information on the treatment methods and statistics in the fight against the pandemic.
Dr. Afşin Emre Kayıpmaz from Ankara City Hospital delivered a presentation on the “Logistics of planning of the vaccines and determining the priority groups for vaccination” and briefed the audience on Turkey’s strategy on the vaccination process in the upcoming period.
Following the presentations, the participants had questions and answers session related to the Covid-19 vaccination process in Turkey, determination of the vaccine priority groups, side effects of the vaccine, vaccine efficacy and other issues on the pandemic.
The parties agreed to have next meeting of the Health Scientific Group and online trainings on the topics of strategy of epidemiological surveillance in the post-pandemic period and laboratory surveillance for Covid-19 and infection control in January 2021.