Turkey announces vaccination plan for Chinese CoronaVac

Turkey’s health minister has anunced a vaccination plan starting with an experimental “inactivated vaccine” later this month to combat COVID-19 pandemic amid a surge in infections and deaths. Fahrettin Koca h previously anunced an agreement with Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sivac Biotech for 50 million doses of CoronaVac, which is currently in Phase 3 trials. Koca said in a statement late Wednesday that first shipment of inactivated vaccine will arrive in Turkey after Dec. 11.

Inactivated vaccines are me by growing whole virus in a lab and n killing it. Safely brewing and n killing virus can take longer than newer techlogies. But inactivated vaccines give body a sneak peek at germ itself rar than just single spike protein, which mediates entry of coronavirus.

minister said early use authorization would be granted after Turkish labs confirm vaccine safety and initial results from Phase 3 trials are assessed. “If developments continue positively as we expect, Turkey would be among first countries in world to begin vaccinations in early phase,” Koca said.

In vember, Lancet published a study about efficacy of Sivac’s vaccine candidate based on initial Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials. study said efficacy was determined to be moderate, and that vaccine produced lower levels of antibodies than those that have been found in recovered COVID-19 patients.

“ protective efficacy of CoronaVac remains to be determined,” study said.

Candidates from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have said that y have more than 90% efficacy rates. U.K.’s AstraZeneca have an efficacy rate of 70-90%, again based on limited clinical trials. Vaccination efforts would be rolled out in four sts, minister said. first group includes health care workers, citizens above 65, and people living in homes for elderly, disabled or or protective care homes.

Next would be essential workers and people above 50 with at least one chronic disease. Third, people younger than 50 with at least one chronic illness, young ults and or workers would be vaccinated. fourth and final phase would be for rest of population. CoronaVac will be delivered in two doses per person. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday vaccine would be ministered free of charge. Or COVID-19 vaccines would be sold at pharmacies, according to health minister.

“We will take delivery of at least 10 million doses of vaccine in December and likely 20 million. Ar 20 million doses in January and 10 million in February,” Koca said earlier this week. Turkey's population is more than 83 million.

Koca h previously anunced an agreement for 1 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be delivered in December. He said Wednesday that negotiations were ongoing for more vaccines that introduce a so-called messenger RNA, or mRNA, sequence coded for a disease specific antigen, which prompts body to have an immune response.

RNA vaccines work by introducing an mRNA sequence ( molecule which tells cells what to build) which is coded for a disease specific antigen, once produced within body, antigen is recognized by immune system, preparing it to fight real thing.” Turkey was included in trial phases of both vaccines and is also developing a local vaccine. Vaccine trials usually take years but have been drastically sped-up in wake of global pandemic.

Turkey has reported record fatalities for 10 consecutive days, with 193 new deaths Wednesday, bringing total death toll in country to 14,129. daily number of infections has also hit a record high of 31,923, as Turkey resumed reporting all positive cases last week after four months of only releasing numbers of symptomatic patients. new daily infection numbers put Turkey among worst-hit in world.