One of the issues that Turkey has been talking about for a long time in the fight against coronavirus is the domestic coronavirus vaccine Turkovac. While Turkovac, which has a similar structure to Sinovac, the inactivated coronavirus vaccine produced in China, is thought to be more interested by the citizens due to its production method, an important statement was made about this vaccine. The name that made the statement was Prof. Dr., who left the Turkovac team a while ago. Dr. It was Murat Akova.
Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine Infectious Diseases Specialist Prof. Dr. In the statements made by Murat Akova, a general comparison was made between Turkovac and Sinovac. Increasing the hope of people with his statements, Prof. Dr. Akova stated that Turkovac will be at least as effective as Sinovac. The scientist reminded once again that no side effects were observed in the domestic vaccine, whose phase-3 studies are ongoing.
Here are the statements of the scientist who left the Turkovac team on the subject
If it is shown to be as effective as the Sinovac vaccine, if it proves to be no less effective, then of course the Turkovac vaccine will be approved. Then it will go into the production phase. It is not easy to produce inactivated vaccines. These are tough jobs. You are dealing with a large amount of viruses. The most important step here is the conclusion of this scientific study in favor of the vaccine, showing that the vaccine is successful. If the desired level of volunteers is reached, the study may be completed in a shorter time.
The Turkovac vaccine can best be compared as follows; It is an equivalent vaccine to the Sinovac vaccine, which is widely used in Turkey. It is prepared in the same way. Virus isolated from a patient in China in the Sinovac vaccine. Here’s a virus from our own patients. But this virus is the original virus that has never mutated before. The original virus that emerged in Wuhan when the first outbreak started. That’s the virus in the Turkovac vaccine. The Turkovac vaccine is also an inactivated vaccine. Inactivated vaccines have the following features; they initially produce a smaller amount of antibodies than mRNA vaccines, such as the Biontech vaccine. But they produce more common antibodies against different parts of the virus. Generally, the effects of these vaccines are short-lived. As we have seen in Sinovac, 3-4 months after the second dose, the level of antibodies in the blood may decrease and a new reminder dose may be required. All of the things said for the Sinovac vaccine are probably the same for the Turkovac vaccine in terms of its preparation, effect, and duration of the effect. I expect similar results will occur. I predict that the Turkovac vaccine will be as effective as the Sinovac vaccine.
In addition, in Sinovac, the antibody decreases after a while, but it still maintains its protection. Now the same situation can be expected for the Turkovac vaccine. In fact, the conclusion of this scientific study is also important in this respect, because the virus that currently dominates in Turkey is the Delta variant. Therefore, we can conclude that if both vaccines are shown to be protective against the Delta variant of Sinovac and Turkovac vaccine, they will be successful. Of course, we have to wait for that result.
Currently, there are studies carried out in different countries of the world. One of them is the study of Pfizer/BionTech company, which covers the vaccination of children between the ages of 5-12. Not yet published, that data has been submitted to the American Health Authority. We did not see the results. It is possible to reach a more definite judgment on this issue after being published in a scientific journal and published in a scientific journal and passed through the referee’s criticism. The preliminary impression is that in this age group, the vaccine seems to be effective and there is no serious problem in terms of short-term follow-up, safety and side effects within the follow-up period. If this is proven, there are studies with similar vaccines, for example in China. In the studies there, we see that the age of vaccination is reduced to 2 years. If these are scientifically proven, passed through the criticism of other scientists and accepted as correct, then it seems that we will soon be able to see that the vaccination age has decreased to 2 years old. If the vaccination age drops further and becomes widespread in the society, then an important step will be taken in the control of the pandemic. . .