Erdoğan pledges to send 15 mln doses of Turkey's locally-developed COVID jab "Turkovac" to Africa

Turkey plans to send 15 million doses of its locally developed coronavirus jab "Turkovac" to Africa, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told a Turkey-Africa summit in Istanbul on Saturday.
"It is a disgrace for humanity that only 6 per cent of the African population has received the COVID-19 vaccine," Erdoğan told leaders from the continent.
Turkey will work to help overcome "global injustice" and "unjust treatment" of Africa during the pandemic, the Turkish president added.
Turkey has already applied for emergency use approval for Turkovac and doses will be shared with Africa once authorization is granted, Erdoğan added.
The number of infections is rising more rapidly than ever before, especially in South Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned this week.
Erdoğan said Ankara is committed to further deepening trade ties with Africa. He set a goal of 75 billion dollars a year, up from the 30 billion dollars in trade seen so far this year.
Turkey has 43 embassies between Africa's 54 countries and has large investments from humanitarian and social aid programmes to energy, defence and infrastructure projects.
A total of 16 leaders and 102 ministers are attending the Istanbul summit, the third such meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Friday.