Four of the top 10 countries in the world with the worst outbreaks of Wuhan pneumonia (novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19) are primarily vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine, but the number of confirmed cases remains high, raising doubts about the effectiveness of the Chinese vaccine against the mutated virus. Turkey has begun offering a third booster dose for health care workers and people over 50 years of age to combat the spread of the highly contagious Delta strain, following earlier vaccinations of millions of people with the Chinese-made vaccine.
Turkey launched a vaccination program in mid-January this year, offering only the Chinese Kexing vaccine at the time, but later added the Pfizer/BNT vaccine for people to receive, and as of the early morning of the 5th, nearly 52.67 million people have received at least the first dose of the vaccine, equivalent to 63% of the total population, and nearly 15.68 million people have completed two doses.
In response to questions from the Wall Street Journal, the Turkish Ministry of Health said Turkey provided the booster shots because some health care workers and elderly people received the initial doses six months ago, when Turkey only offered the Coxin vaccine.
Turkey is not the first country to offer booster shots to people who received the Chinese vaccine. Among the countries that have received the Chinese vaccine on a large scale, the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain previously offered a catch-up Pfizer/BNT vaccine to people who received two doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine because of a record number of confirmations; the United Arab Emirates is also preparing to offer a third dose of the Sinopharm vaccine after doctors said the Chinese vaccine did not produce enough protective antibodies in some cases. In addition, Serbia, the first European country to receive the Sinopharm vaccine, is also rumored to have no antibodies in nearly 30% of its elders after receiving the vaccine.
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