The epidemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, a new coronavirus, isproved itself to be the most important health problem of the21st century. The high contagiousness of the virus, its unprec edented negative impact on the health system of countries,and the lack of treatments that can improve the prognosis ofthe disease to date indicate the importance of developing an ef fective and reliable vaccine against this disease. In addition, ithas been suggested that 60%-70% population immunity (herdimmunity) required to end the pandemic can only be achievedwith vaccines. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it took an av erage of 10-15 years to develop a vaccine. However, with theisolation of the virus from the first cases of viral pneumonia inChina and making the entire genome available to researchers,the strategies of developing genetically-based vaccines that canbe produced in a shorter time and cheaper than inactive vac cines such as mRNA, viral vector which have been intensivelyresearched in the last one or two decades and their adaptationto SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development has reduced this time to12-18 months. In addition, an unprecedented financial supportand the allocation of manpower for the epidemic, which causesthe death of thousands of people per day and causes life to haltboth socially and economically, has accelerated the vaccine tri als. As of mid-December, there were 214 vaccine developmenttrials in nine different categories of which 52 were in clinicalphases; 13 of these were in Phase 3. This review summarizes thehistory of development, safety and efficacy of the four importantvaccines that are in Phase 3 and close to clinical use, and thecharacteristics of the vaccines. The first of these vaccines is thePfizer / Biontech vaccine, an mRNA vaccine that received FDAapproval for the first time on 11 December 2020. The mRNAvaccine developed by Moderna was the second vaccine that ap plied for FDA approval. The non-replicating viral vector vac cine developed by AstraZeneca with Oxford University attractsattention especially with its low cost. The agreement betweenthe inactive virus vaccine CoronaVac, developed by ChineseSinovac with traditional vaccine production technology, and theorder of Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health for 50 milliondoses of vaccine puts this vaccine on the agenda for our country.Phase 4 studies of vaccines that will be put into emergency usein the near future will provide very important real-world data onthe efficacy and safety of these vaccines..