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. Nurbolot Usenbaev, Deputy Minister of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic, Members of the Health Scientific Group and high level officials from the Member and Observer States.
Deputy Secretary General Kocaman briefed the participants on the activities conducted by the Secretariat and the draft Action Plan on implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Turkic Council and World Health Organization signed between the two organizations on 11 September 2020.
Deputy Minister Alp Meşe provided information on the latest developments in the vaccine studies in Turkey and stated that 3rd phase clinical studies of a local vaccine will start in May. It was also mentioned that Turkey has already vaccinated over 10 million people and will use its own vaccine in the first half of 2021.
Deputy Minister further informed the participants that Turkey started preparations for a training on "Infection Prevention and Control" in cooperation with the World Health Organization that will be available for all the Parties.
Dr. Tarkan Mustafa Yamanoğlu from Public Health Directorate of the Ministry of Health of Turkey made a presentation regarding the Vaccine Safety and Tracking System. He especially underlined Turkey‘s vaccine cold chain capacity which allows to maintain the effectiveness of a vaccine from its production or storage until its injection to a person and ensures that sufficient amount of effective vaccine reaches those who need it.
Following the presentation, the participants had questions and answers session related to the Covid-19 vaccination process, vaccine efficacy and its side effects, vaccination of the people with chronic diseases and other issues on the pandemic.
The parties agreed to have next meeting of the Health Scientific Group on the results of the current vaccination process, COVID-19 variants and mutations, as well as the vaccine effectiveness against the new variants.
