Turkish Official Says CoronaVac Vaccine 91.25% Effective

An experimental COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac is 91.25% effective, a Turkish health official said Thursday.

Dr Serhat Unal, an infectious disease expert who works on Turkey’s medical board, said the finding is based on early results from late-stage trials in the country, adding that the vaccine is safe.

CoronaVac is a so-called inactivated vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech. Unal announced the initial results after randomized trials involving 7,371 volunteers.

Turkey’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said at the press conference that the results were the first to be announced for CoronaVac. Media reports said Sinovac delayed the announcement of the results of the late-stage trials until January to consolidate data from other countries where the trials were conducted. The efficacy rate announced by Turkey could not be immediately independently verified.

Koca said the first shipment of three million doses of CoronaVac will be shipped to Turkey on Sunday night and arrive on Monday. The vaccines were initially expected to arrive after Dec. 11, but Koca said permitting issues caused the delay. Turkey has signed an agreement for 50 million doses of the vaccine.

The Health Minister also said that an agreement was close for the vaccine developed by Pfizer and the BioNTech vaccine. He said Turkey could receive 4.5 million doses until the end of March and would have the option to buy up to 30 million doses.

Turkey has one of the worst infection rates in the world, with a weekly average of around 22,000 confirmed daily infections. The total death toll is 19,115, according to official statistics.

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