China's Sinovac 83.5% effective: Turkish university

ANKARA Chinese vaccine Sinovac is 83.5% effective against the coronavirus, an Ankara-based university said Wednesday after concluding the final phase of their clinical trials. Hacettepe University said trials showed the vaccine will prevent hospitalization by 100%. “A group of the volunteers received the actual vaccine, while the other received a placebo," the university said in a statement explaining the research methodology. Neither the volunteers nor the researchers knew which jab was given to whom, it added. The volunteers were aged 18-59, with the median age being 45. “At least one dose of actual vaccine or placebo was administered to 10,216 people [...] Of these volunteers, 6,648 were included in the actual vaccine group, while 3,568 were included in the placebo group." No death occurred during the trials, the university said. However, the most common side effects were tiredness with 9.8%, headache 7.6%, muscle pain 3.8%, fever 2.5%, chills 2.4% and pain in the injection area 1.6%. The university said that 57.8% of the volunteers were men, while 42.24% women. On Jan.14, Turkey began a mass COVID-vaccination campaign, starting with healthcare workers along with top officials to encourage public confidence in the vaccines. According to the Health Ministry's official figures, Turkey has so far administered over 9.36 million coronavirus vaccine jabs across the country. Over 7.26 million people to date have received their first doses of the vaccine, while over 2.1 million have received the second dose. *Contributions and writing by Sena Guler