Following Jokowi, Turkish President Erdogan Receives His First Sinovac Vaccine Injection

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Twitter / R Erdogan)

JAKARTA - Following President Joko Widodo, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received his first injection of the COVID-19 vaccine made by Sinovac today, January 15. This comes after Turkish authorities gave the green light for the emergency use of the Chinese company's COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday January 13.

Before Erdogan, the first group to be vaccinated, as quoted by AP News, Friday, January 15, 2021, was Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca and a member of Turkey's scientific advisory board. The event broadcast by national television, according to a spokesman for the AK Party, aims to reduce public doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine. So far Turkey has vaccinated more than 250,000 health workers.

Erdogan received his first shot of the vaccine at the Ankara City Hospital and arrived with Health Minister Fahrettin Koca who had previously been vaccinated. Speaking to reporters outside the hospital, Erdogan said he and senior AK Party members were all vaccinated. He urged other politicians to support the vaccine.

"The number of vaccines in the first stage is clear. Now, 25-30 million more doses will come in the coming period. We want to continue this quickly, "he said, adding that all vaccines coming in are from Sinovac for now.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, speaking after Erdogan left hospital. He said all citizens should be vaccinated when their turn comes.

Sinovac Vaccine as an Option

The Sinovac vaccine underwent studies in Turkey, Brazil and Indonesia. Researchers in Brazil last week determined the vaccine was 78 percent effective at protecting against COVID-19. But this week they announced the data showed that overall, the effectiveness was only about 50 percent.

Meanwhile, Turkey announced a higher effectiveness of 91 percent. But the studies are too small to conclude. Global health authorities say any vaccine that is at least 50 percent effective will be useful. The first shipment of Sinovac vaccine, consisting of 3 million doses, arrived in Turkey at the end of December 2020. Turkey is scheduled to receive a total of 50 million doses.

Turkey has also previously announced that it has agreed to get 4.5 million doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, with the option of getting another 30 million doses later. But President Erdogan said that talks with BioNTech were still in progress.

As we all know, Indonesia has also started a vaccination program. Last Wednesday, January 13, the President of the Republic of Indonesia Joko Widodo (Jokowi) received an injection which was also broadcast live.

Jokowi became the first person to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the national vaccination program. "It doesn't hurt at all," said Jokowi after receiving an injection of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Merdeka Palace, Jakarta.

Similar to Erdogan, Jokowi also received a vaccine made by Sinovac. In this vaccination process, Jokowi had to go through four medical stages. First registration and data verification. Second, screening medical history, then the injection stage, and the last stage is the monitoring stage for 30 minutes post-injection to determine the effect of vaccine administration.