Turkey administers record number of vaccine doses in one day

By Burak Dag

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey administered over 1.2 million coronavirus vaccine doses Tuesday, according to the country’s health minister.

Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter that over 1.24 million vaccine jabs had been given.

The number of vaccine doses administered Tuesday marks a record in Turkey’s vaccination efforts.

Turkey has administered over 35.86 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in mid-January, including first doses to nearly one-fourth of the country’s population of some 83.6 million, the ministry said.

The ministry also confirmed 5,955 new coronavirus cases, including 532 symptomatic patients, across the country in the last 24 hours. The number of new cases on Monday was 5,626.

Turkey's overall case tally is now over 5.34 million, while the nationwide death toll has reached 48,879 with 84 new fatalities.

As many as 4,186 more patients won the battle against the virus, pushing the total number of recoveries past 5.21 million.

Since December 2019, the coronavirus pandemic has claimed over 3.8 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 176.4 million cases reported worldwide, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University.