ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stripped down to a black t-shirt and got vaccinated on Thursday as the nation of 83 million people began rolling out China’s Sinovac jab despite conflicting data about its efficacy.
The 66-year-old Turkish leader was whisked into an Ankara hospital by a bevy of security guards before emerging about an hour later to stress the importance of officials setting a good example by getting the jab.
“There are some people doing negative campaigning (about vaccinations) but I am sure common sense will prevail,” Erdogan said as a masked doctor stabbed him with a needle while a nurse put a comforting arm on his shoulder.
“I believe it will be vital for political leaders and deputies to encourage the vaccination drive (by getting vaccinated) themselves,” he later told a group of waiting reporters.
One opinion poll conducted in November showed about half of Turkish respondents unwilling to take the jab.
Health officials have spent two weeks testing the safety of the doses delivered from China after preliminary studies involving 7,371 volunteers in Turkey showed Sinovac’s vaccine to be 91.25 percent effective.
But a bigger trial in Brazil put the efficacy of Sinovac at 50.4 percent while a third one in Indonesia resulted in a 65.3 percent success rate, raising concerns about the Chinese manufacturer’s transparency. After covering Turkey’s 1.1 million healthcare workers, the vaccination programme will move on to essential workers and people aged 65 and above.
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