Booster dose

Turkey's health minister announced on Nov. 3 that the country will start administering booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to people who received their second doses at least six months ago.

In a written statement following a meeting of the country's medical advisory council, Fahrettin Koca said the booster shots would be administered as of Thursday.

Some 13 million people in Turkey have not yet got a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine even though they are eligible for the jab, with a little more than 58 percent of the country's whole population having been given at least two doses of the vaccine.

More than 7 million Britons already have a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Statistics show that in the last seven days alone, more than 2 million have received a booster vaccine. Health Minister Sajid Javid called on people who received an invitation for a third vaccine to take advantage of it as soon as possible to boost their immune system for the winter.

The Delta variant of the new coronavirus can be easily transmitted by vaccinated people through household contact, and contacts are unlikely to become infected if they themselves are vaccinated, according to a British study quoted by Reuters.

The European Medicines Agency has approved the administration of a booster dose of the Moderna vaccine.

The regulator concluded that booster doses could be given to individuals over 18 years of age at least six months after the second dose.

As of Saturday, the United States had administered 412,856,169 doses of COVID-19 vaccines and sent 503,521,625 doses to vaccination centers, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Some 5 million people who have already received two doses of the inactivated COVID-19 vaccines have skipped their third shot, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said, urging them to get the booster shot as soon as possible.

Turkey is presently using both the mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and the Chinese company Sinovac's inactivated vaccine in its inoculation drive.

Turkey has administered over 113.86 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched an immunization drive this January, according to official figures released on Oct. 16.

More than 54.8 million people have gotten the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while around 47.2 million are fully vaccinated, the Health Ministry said.

"There is no doubt in the effectiveness of the vaccines against the Delta variant of coronavirus, although this effectiveness has been reduced. There is no doubt in the reliability and effectiveness of the four vaccines approved for use in the EU and in Bulgaria against Covid-19," said Prof. Mariana Murdzheva, clinical immunologist and rector of MU-Plovdiv.

EU legislation does not foresee checking the validity of certificates issued to fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This was stated today by a spokesman for the European Commission on the occasion of the decision of several EU countries to switch to an additional dose of vaccine.