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Turkey will receive its first shipment of the Sinovac coronavirus vaccine from China in a few days, as preliminary national tests showed it was 91 percent effective.
Image Credit: AP
Istanbul: Turkey will receive its first shipment of the Sinovac coronavirus vaccine from China in a few days, as preliminary national tests showed it was 91% effective, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Thursday.
Ankara will also sign an agreement with Pfizer / BioNTech for 4.5 million doses in the coming days, with the option to buy an additional 30 million from the US pharmaceutical giant and its German partner, Koca said.
Turkey will initially receive 3 million doses of Sinovac and will have the option of receiving 50 million more when inoculations begin next month, starting with healthcare workers and the most vulnerable.
Koca said the first shipments of the Chinese vaccine will be shipped to Turkey on Sunday.
Tests not complete
Preliminary tests on 7,371 volunteers in Turkey showed that the Chinese vaccine was 91.25 percent effective, although phase three tests were not yet complete.
Turkey “will be able to vaccinate 1.5 million or even two million people a day,” Koca said, adding that the “first stage” of vaccinations would cover nine million people.
The nation of 83 million has officially recorded 19,115 Covid-19 deaths and 2.2 million virus infections.
