[News] COVID-19: Turkish Doctors Criticize Massive Immunization Plan With Chinese Sinovac Vaccine

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Turkish doctors have criticized the opacity of their government in the mass immunization plans that it wants to launch in the coming weeks with a Chinese vaccine that has not yet completed the latest trials on its effectiveness.

While the United Kingdom began its vaccination program with the one created by Pfizer / BioNTech on the 8th, and the United States and the European Union finalize the approval of a series of remedies produced by Western pharmaceutical companies, Turkey has placed all its hopes in the short term in the vaccine from the Chinese company Sinovac.

This country will receive the first ten million doses of the Sinovac vaccine in the coming days, after reaching a preliminary agreement of a total of 50 million doses.

The vaccine is in phase three of clinical trials and will go through a research process in Turkish laboratories before being administered to the po[CENSORED]tion.

 

Delays in plans
The Turkish Minister of Health, Fahrettin Koca, announced two weeks ago that Turkey would begin the vaccination process in mid-December, although days later he detailed that they would begin receiving the doses of Sinovac from those dates with the hope of administering it to the citizenship at the end of the month or from 2021.

Doctors and pharmacists have criticized the government's lack of transparency and specificity in the development and communication of the vaccination process.

"The medical community and the doctors who work in this field learned of the process from official statements in the media," criticized Efe Esin Senol, a specialist in infectious diseases.

The Turkish Pharmacists Association (TEB) stated in a statement that they have not yet been informed about the distribution or the administration process of the vaccine.

However, the government has already announced that it will divide the vaccination process into four stages: first, health workers and people over 65; patients with chronic diseases or at risk; sick people under 50 years old, and finally the rest of the citizens.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that this vaccine will be administered free of charge, while other brands will be sold in pharmacies.

 

Vaccine in testing phase
"To obtain a license for its use, a vaccine must pass the third phase of trials. At the moment there are three vaccines that have already passed it. Sinovac is not among them," Kayihan Pala, a member of the College of Physicians of Turkey (TTB).

"We do not expect the vaccine to have side effects because (Sinovac) has a composition that we have known for a long time. But we do not know how effective it is," Pala clarifies.

Turkey has announced a pre-agreement with Sinovac to purchase the two doses required for 25 million people before the end of March.

The government has indicated that as of April it could purchase vaccines from the US company Pfizer or administer doses developed by Turkish laboratories, although at the moment it has not confirmed any measures.

The Eurasian country has already been testing the Sinovac vaccine since September and has administered doses to thousands of volunteers and health personnel.

So far the tests have gone smoothly although the Chinese pharmaceutical company expects to obtain the results of the third phase of trials at the end of January.

 

A single vaccine
Several experts assured Efe that the government has not acquired more than one vaccine because it took too long to request pre-agreements with the companies.

"Turkey should have contacted companies in March, when the first wave started. It has taken too long to do so. The management of the pandemic was bad and the result we are facing now proves it," Pala details.

"You cannot overcome a pandemic with just one vaccine. I don't know if there are other countries that have also asked for just one," she adds.

 

Second wave with record deaths
Turkey, with some 80 million inhabitants, has seen a doubling of COVID deaths with about 210 deaths a day in the last two weeks, although the Social Democratic opposition believes that the real figures are much higher.

According to data from the Istanbul Mayor's Office, about 200 deaths are recorded every day "due to contagious disease" in this city alone, which is home to a fifth of Turkey's po[CENSORED]tion.

In the municipal death registry, accessible on the internet, the impact of the pandemic can be observed: in recent years, until last February, the daily number of deaths ranged between 200 and 220.

In the worst days of the first wave, in April, it reached 300 deaths a day, while now it exceeds 430.

The College of Physicians (TTB) questions the official figures and believes that the real death toll is close to 1,000 a day.