Turkey administers over 46.8M coronavirus vaccine shots

By Seda Sevencan

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey has administered over 46.84 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in mid-January, according to official figures released on Saturday.

More than 32 million people have received their first doses, while over 14.8 million have been fully vaccinated, showed the Health Ministry count.

It also confirmed 5,266 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, including 470 symptomatic patients.

Turkey's overall case tally is now over 5.4 million, while the nationwide death toll has reached 49,524 with 51 new fatalities.

As many as 7,402 more patients won the battle against the virus, taking the number of recoveries past 5.26 million.

Nearly 59.9 million coronavirus tests have been done to date.

The latest figures put the number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition at 733.

On Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also unveiled Turkovac, the country's homegrown COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which has entered Phase 3 clinical trials.

Amid a nationwide fall in virus cases, Turkey is set to end all restrictions, which include nighttime curfews and full lockdown on Sundays, as of July 1.

On June 1, the country eased some measures following a 17-day strict lockdown.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 3.9 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 180.5 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US' Johns Hopkins University.