UPDATE - Turkey administers over 62M COVID-19 vaccine shots

UPDATES FIGURES, ADDS HEALTH MINISTER'S POST ON TWITTER

By Burak Dag and Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey has administered over 62.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in January, according to official figures released on Friday.

The country continues its intensive vaccination campaign to curb the spread of the coronavirus as all residents over the age of 18 can choose to get either the Chinese Sinovac jab or the vaccine produced by German firm BioNTech and its US partner Pfizer.

According to data by the Health Ministry, more than 38.79 million people have gotten their first dose, while over 20.03 million have received their second.

Meanwhile, over 1.11 million vaccine doses have been administered in the last 24 hours, the figures showed.

To date, 62.45% of the adult population has received at least one vaccine dose.

The ministry also confirmed 6,918 new infections and 35 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, while as many as 5,084 more patients recovered.

Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca later made the announcement on Twitter that second doses in the country had exceeded 20 million.

"Nearly one-third of the population aged 18 and over, 20 million people, have received their second doses. A third of us are now double-dosed," Koca said.

Amid a nationwide drop in cases and an expedited vaccination drive, Turkey entered a new normalization phase on July 1, lifting almost all virus-related restrictions.

However, seeking to limit the spread of the Delta variant of the virus, the country has suspended flights from India -- where the strain was first detected.

Meanwhile, arrivals from the UK, Iran, Egypt, and Singapore are required to have negative COVID-19 test results taken within 72 hours before their flight.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 4.07 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 189.23 million cases reported, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University.