ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th May, 2021) Turkey will soon receive a large shipment of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine and launch joint manufacturing in its territory, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, commenting on his phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The phone call took place on Wednesday. The Kremlin said that the two leaders discussed, among other things, the pandemic and the possibility of joint production of Sputnik V.
"We had talks with Putin about the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. We will receive it in a very serious volume. Then we will start its joint production in Turkey," Erdogan told reporters.
Turkey approved the Russian vaccine for emergency use in late April. The first shipments are expected to start later in May.
To date, the world's first registered coronavirus vaccine has been approved for emergency use in 64 countries with a total population of over 3.2 billion people. The efficacy of Sputnik V stands at 97.6%, based on the latest analysis of data on the post-vaccination infection percentage among 3.8 million vaccinated Russians. It is higher than the 91.6% efficacy shown in an interim analysis from the trial published in The Lancet in early February.
