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A COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech is 91.25% effective, according to interim data from a late-stage trial in Turkey.
Researchers in Brazil, which is also conducting a final Phase III trial of the vaccine, said Wednesday that the injection was more than 50% effective, but withheld full results at the company’s request, raising questions about transparency.
On the other hand, the Turkish researchers said Thursday that no major side effects were observed during their trial, apart from one person having an allergic reaction. Common adverse effects caused by the vaccine were fever, mild pain and mild fatigue, they said.
The Turkish trials began Sept. 14 and have included more than 7,000 volunteers, the researchers said, adding that the results announced Thursday were based on data from 1,322 people.
Sinovac is the first Chinese vaccine maker to publish details of late-stage clinical trials, following positive results from rival products developed by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca last month.
The Turkish researchers, speaking together with Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, said that 26 of the 29 people who became infected during the trial received placebos, adding that the trial will continue until 40 people become infected.
The researchers initially planned to announce the results after 40 people were infected, but the findings showed that the volunteers had minimal adverse effects after the injection and that it was therefore considered safe.
Turkey had agreed to buy 50 million doses of the Sinovac injection and receive delivery by December 11, but the shipment was delayed. The country would vaccinate about nine million people in the first group, starting with health workers.
Sinovac has also signed supply agreements for its vaccine, called CoronaVac, with countries such as Indonesia, Brazil, Chile and Singapore, and is negotiating with the Philippines and Malaysia.
CoronaVac has been administered to tens of thousands of people under an emergency use program that China launched in July targeting specific groups at high risk of infection.
CoronaVac is based on traditional vaccine technology that uses inactivated coronavirus that cannot replicate in human cells to trigger an immune response.
The vaccines developed by Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna use a new technology called synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) to activate the immune system against the virus and require much cooler storage.
The Pfizer treatment is the first fully tested COVID-19 injection to be administered, and it is already being rolled out in Britain and the United States.
On Thursday, the death toll in Turkey from the coronavirus rose by 254 to 19,115, according to data from the Health Ministry, while the total number of COVID-19 infections increased by 18,102.
