Turkey administers over 88M COVID-19 jabs so far

By Dilan Pamuk and Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey has administered more than 88 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since launching a mass immunization campaign in January, according to official figures on Friday.

According to the Health Ministry, over 45.6 million people have received a first dose and more than 34.8 million are now fully vaccinated.

Turkey has also given third booster shots to over 7.5 million people.

The data showed that 73.52% of the country's adult population has received at least one dose of a two-shot vaccine.

The ministry also confirmed 19,918 new infections and 204 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, while as many as 15,561 more patients recovered.

"We have losses. The pandemic is untimely separating us from our loved ones. We must be careful and cautious. We will succeed with the vaccine," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.

Turkey on Monday expanded its intensive vaccination campaign to include everyone aged 15 and above, as well as children at least 12 years old who have a chronic disease.

A fourth dose of an mRNA vaccine is administered on demand for nationals who were previously been given two doses of an inactive vaccine plus one dose of an mRNA but traveling to countries that only allow foreigners who had two doses of an mRNA jab, according to the Health Ministry.

Also, people who have contracted COVID-19 will be eligible for vaccination a month after recovery, as opposed to the previous period of three months.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 4.4 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 210.24 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US' Johns Hopkins University.