Over 120M coronavirus vaccine shots given in Turkey to date

By Busra Nur Cakmak

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey has administered over 120.05 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched an immunization drive in January, according to the latest figures released on Saturday.

More than 56.18 million people have taken a first vaccine dose, while over 50.32 million have been fully vaccinated, the Health Ministry said.

Turkey has also given third booster shots to more than 12.1 million people.

Separately, the ministry recorded 23,759 new coronavirus cases, 192 related deaths, and 25,103 recoveries over the past day.

As many as 358,274 virus tests were done in the last 24 hours, the data showed.

On Twitter, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said no cases of the Omicron variant, recently detected in South Africa, had been found in Turkey, adding that the Delta variant was the dominant strain in the country.

This week, South African scientists announced that they had discovered the Omicron variant, which has several mutations that may carry the risk of reinfection. The same variant was also detected in neighboring Botswana, as well as Hong Kong, and was first detected on Nov. 12-22 before being announced on Thursday.

On Friday, the World Health Organization declared the strain a "variant of concern," naming it Omicron.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed nearly 5.19 million lives in at least 192 countries and regions, with more than 260.87 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University.