Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said that after the safety tests of the vaccines are completed, we will start the vaccine application program by giving Emergency Use Approval. How will appointments be made? Will there be vaccinations over the age of 65?
Today, at the first Scientific Board meeting of 2021, we discussed the most critical issue on the agenda, vaccine preparations. I try to inform you regularly about the developments regarding vaccine supply. As of today, we have made a final agreement for 50 million doses of inactive vaccine and received the first part of 3 million doses to our warehouses. In addition, for mRNA-based vaccine, we held a meeting again today and reviewed the new procurement plan. We have signed 4.5 million doses of guarantee and up to 30 million doses. I will continue to inform you as the details about the procurement plan become clear.
In addition, negotiations are ongoing for adenovirus-based vaccines developed in Russia and England.
I would like to explain some information about the inactivated vaccine, where we will start the vaccination program first. As you know, the clinical study of this vaccine is ongoing in our country. In order to start the vaccination program, we requested intermediate results from our scientists who carried out the study on the vaccine. According to the interim results, we understood that the vaccine was safe and effective enough and started the process for Emergency Use Approval. Safety tests are ongoing for currently delivered vaccines. As soon as the tests are completed, Emergency Use Approval will be given if the results are suitable. After requesting intermediate results during the clinical trial phase and seeing that the vaccine is safe, our scientists who conducted the research were notified of accepting new volunteers anymore. Once the vaccine is found to be safe, it is necessary not to continue recruiting new volunteers. Until now, 10.000 doses of vaccine have been administered to over 17.700 volunteers and the results are still being monitored. The country of origin of the inactive vaccine has had Emergency Use Approval for a long time. While giving Emergency Use Approval, the most up-to-date data about the study will be examined.
Our communication with Indonesia, another country where the work continues, continues. Mutual information sharing is provided regularly. It has been learned that the vaccination schedule in Indonesia will start on 13 January. In Brazil, where the study continues, the results have been announced today and it has been announced that the vaccine is 78% effective in mild cases and 100% effective in moderate and severe cases. The study conducted in Brazil was only conducted in healthcare workers, the group most exposed to the virus. Our mutual information sharing will continue.
In our Scientific Committee, another issue on the agenda, the vaccination of people over the age of 60 with inactivated vaccine was also evaluated. Since Phase III experiments were not conducted on people over 60 years of age, it was understood that safety studies were carried out in Phase I and Phase II people over 60 years of age in the evaluation of whether vaccination would be appropriate and that there was no obstacle to the use of new data in this group.
In this context, it is aimed to vaccinate all eligible citizens over the age of 18, starting with the elderly and people in critical duty following the Emergency Use Approval. In this process, we expect the vaccines to reach our country gradually in accordance with the procurement plan. As the vaccine is received within the program, we will vaccinate our citizens according to the risk ranking determined by our Scientific Committee.
Vaccine logistics planning, organization of widespread vaccination centers including all our hospitals, especially Family Health Centers. The applications that will ensure the digital monitoring of the entire process and the creation of databases of risk priority institutions are about to be completed. Our website, where our citizens can learn about appointment processes and access ways to vaccines, and access detailed information about vaccines, will be activated in the coming days.
Our citizens will be able to follow the order of the social and demographic groups they belong to on the web page. They will be able to be informed about the vaccine allocation information via channels such as e-Nabız and MHRS, and they will have vaccines free of charge by making an appointment via MHRS. The vaccine will be administered in two doses. They will be able to make similar appointments for the second dose of vaccination 28 days after the first vaccine administration.
Dear Citizens,
Our Ministry of Health and all relevant stakeholders are working day and night to start the vaccination schedule as quickly as possible and to start vaccinating our citizens safely. Make sure that we will use all our strength for vaccination, which we hope to end the devastating impact of the global pandemic.
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