China Vaccine arrives North Cyprus, vaccination begins with almost the entire TRNC population to be vaccinated by March

The first batch of Chinese Sinovac’s vaccines arrived the TRNC in an ambulance plane carrying 20,000 doses early on Thursday from Turkey. 

Twenty thousand doses of the Sinovac vaccine arrived in our country at 5 am by air ambulance from the Republic of Turkey, the minister of health, Health minister, Ali Pilli said in a statement.

Vaccinations started in North Cyprus on Friday with TRNC president, Ersin Tatar and Minister of Health the first to receive the shot at about 11:00am in Lefkosa.

Tatar said that the tourism and education sectors could open and start operating again if the majority of people get vaccinated.

Ali Pilli said 5,000 healthcare workers would be vaccinated first while priority would be given to people over 85 and to vulnerable people adding that nine vaccination centres have been set up and would be increased to 15 in the coming days.

The minister said that they planned to vaccinate 80% of the entire TRNC population by the end of February or the beginning of March.

Underlining the importance of getting vaccinated, Pilli said people needed to ask themselves whether it was better to get Covid-19 or vaccinated.