Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF announced Saturday it had signed a deal with Turkey on the production of its Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19, the Interfax news agency reported.
RDIF added that it had begun transferring the production technology to Turkey.
The fund has also signed deals to produce Sputnik V with manufacturers in South Korea, China, India, Brazil, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Turkey has been in talks with Germany in the joint production of a coronavirus vaccine as well.
The country recently started the inoculation of health care staff, planning to vaccinate 50 million by summer, with experts warning that a mass inoculation campaign does not mean the end of the pandemic. They call on the public to continue to adhere to the rules, even for a while after the vaccination drive ends.
As of Friday, Turkey registered a total of 24,789 deaths due to the coronavirus, while over 2.29 million people have recovered from the disease. Currently, there have been over 2.4 million confirmed cases in the country.
Turkey has been implementing curfews on weeknights and full weekend curfews since Dec. 5, 2020, as part of measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
