Health minister says early use authorisation will be granted after Turkish labs confirm the shots are safe. Turkey’s health minister has announced a plan to start using an experimental Chinese COVID-19 vaccine later this month amid a surge in infections and deaths.
Fahrettin Koca had previously announced an agreement with China’s Sinovac Biotech for 50 million doses of CoronaVac, which is currently in late-stage trials.
Koca said in a statement late on Wednesday the first shipment of the vaccine will arrive in Turkey after December 11.
The minister said early use authorisation would be granted after Turkish labs confirm the shots are safe and after assessment of initial results from the latest trials.
“If developments continue positively as we expect, Turkey would be among the first countries in the world to begin vaccinations in the early phase,” Koca said.
In November, The Lancet published a study about the efficacy of Sinovac’s vaccine candidate based on initial clinical trials.The study said the efficacy was determined to be moderate, and the vaccine produced lower levels of antibodies than those that have been found in recovered COVID-19 patients.
“The protective efficacy of CoronaVac remains to be determined,” the study said.
Candidates from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have said they have more than 90 percent efficacy rates.The UK’s AstraZeneca has an efficacy rate of 70-90 percent, again based on limited clinical trials.
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Vaccination efforts would be rolled out in four stages, the minister said.
The first group includes healthcare workers, citizens above age 65, and people living in homes for the elderly, disabled or other protective care homes.Source: aljazeera.com
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
