Turkey administers over 90M COVID-19 jabs so far

By Gozde Bayar

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey has administered more than 90 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since launching a mass immunization campaign in January, according to official figures on Tuesday.

According to the Health Ministry, over 46.54 million people have received a first dose and more than 35.59 million are now fully vaccinated.

Turkey has also given third booster shots to over 7.78 million people.

The data showed that at least 74.62% of the country's adult population has received minimum one dose of a two-shot vaccine.

Turkey last week 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 previously 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 4.44 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 212.63 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US' Johns Hopkins University.