Turkey to buy doses of Chinese COVID-19 candidate vaccine, in talks with Pfizer

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey will sign a contract within days to purchase at least 20 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate from China’s Sinovac Biotech, the health minister said, adding that Ankara was also in talks to purchase doses of Pfizer and BioNTech Vaccine.

“We will be able to buy at least 10 million doses of the Chinese vaccine in December. We want to increase that number. It will be just as much in January too ”, declared the Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca, quoted by the news agency of State Anadolu.

“That number can easily double, probably. A contract will be signed on this subject in one or two days, ”he said during the presentation of his ministry’s budget to parliament on Wednesday.

Turkey would become the second largest buyer of the Chinese vaccine after Brazil.

Preliminary test results have shown that Sinovac СВА.О The investigational COVID-19 CoronaVac vaccine elicited a rapid immune response, but the level of antibodies produced was lower than in people who recovered from the virus.

CoronaVac and four other investigational vaccines developed in China are at an advanced stage of testing to determine their effectiveness.

Report follows news from Pfizer Inc this month PFE.N and BioNTech 22UAy.DE and Moderna MRNA.O, as well as from Russia, of investigational vaccines that were over 90% effective based on provisional data from large and late-stage trials.

Pfizer and BioNTech could get emergency clearance in the United States and Europe for their COVID-19 vaccine next month after final trial results showed it had a 95% success rate and none serious side effect, the drugmakers said Wednesday.

Koca said Turkey was also in talks to buy its vaccine, once it got its license.

“If so, the number that can be attributed to Turkey is 1 million. We have talks right now to gradually increase to 25 million in the year starting in January, ”Koca said.

While some countries, including Turkey, have carried out testing for Sinovac’s investigational vaccine, Brazil is currently the only country to have agreed to receive doses of it. The state of Sao Paulo will start importing 46 million doses this week.

In a statement Thursday, Turkish Airlines THYAO.IS said its freight carrier Turkish Cargo delivered a shipment of vaccines from Beijing to Sao Paolo.