Cape Town - In light of moving Africa forward, Turkiye-Africa held the Third Türkiye-Africa Partnership Summit to discuss progressive strategies and efforts towards new vaccines released by Turkey to increase the percentage of people who are not vaccinated around the continent.
At the summit, over 100 ministers attended, including 26 foreign ministers and 16 heads of state from 39 African nations, to discuss Turkey's contributions towards peace, investment, education, youth and women's development, infrastructure, agriculture, and health systems.
Esma Karadag, General Secretary of the Turkish-South African Youth Association, said that these summits aim to promote and develop relations with the countries on the continent as Turkey’s increased diplomatic missions prove to be working.
"With Turkey’s increased diplomatic missions increasing from 12 to 43 in the last 20 years, 37 embassies from African countries in Ankara, Turkey, and institutions such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, Yunus Emre Institute, Maarif Foundation, and Turkish Airlines flying to 61 cities, I can indicate that the institutional entity of Turkey in Africa is very strong."
"Therefore, given the fact that there is a deep-rooted Turkish-Cape Malay history in Cape Town that will help promote growth, Turkey will soon start production of its first Turkish-made Covid-19 vaccine, as it is one of the nine countries in the world that can produce a Covid-19 vaccine. And as our government officials stated, Turkey will cooperate with Africa in joint production and delivery of the vaccine."
"This is a huge opportunity for both Turkey and African countries. This will allow an increased distribution to African countries, allowing great immunisation of the African content," said Karadag.
With the theme of the summit being "Enhanced Partnership for Common Development and Prosperity," Research Assistant at Africa Foundation, Mustafa Enes Özün said Turkey's vaccine move may seem unnecessary or late, but it is quite important.
"With TURKOVAC's testing processes being completed and approved for use in the past weeks and vaccines such as BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna, Sinovac, and Sputnik having been in use for a long time, Turkey's vaccine move may seem unnecessary or late, but it is quite important."
"It will share the source code of these vaccines with other countries free of charge. In addition, the vaccine contains the traditional method (inactive) as a technology, and its tests were carried out in detail over a long period. So, some people who are confused about vaccines have no reason to be suspicious about that."
"Since the beginning of the pandemic, Turkey has provided medical equipment assistance to many countries (more than 80 and counting) around the world. In my opinion, Turkey will continue this stance and, in addition to sharing vaccine source codes, will also provide vaccine support to countries in need if they request it. For this reason, I believe that there will be a noticeable increase in vaccination rates in Africa in the coming period," said Özün.
Weekend Argus