UPDATE - Turkey has administered over 106.5M vaccine jabs to date

UPDATES FIGURES; ADDS REMARKS BY TURKISH HEALTH MINISTER

By Dilara Hamit and Busra Nur Cakmak

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey has administered over 106.5 million coronavirus vaccine jabs since the country launched an immunization drive in January, according to official figures released Wednesday.

More than 53 million people have gotten their first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, while over 42.8 million are fully vaccinated, the Health Ministry said.

The data showed that 85.51% of the country's adult population has received at least one dose of a two-shot vaccine.

Turkey has also given third booster shots to over 9.93 million people.

Separately, the ministry reported 28,168 new coronavirus cases, while as many as 242 more people lost their fight against the disease in the last 24 hours.

As many as 351,655 tests for the virus were done over the past day.

In a statement on Wednesday, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca urged pregnant women to be vaccinated as the infections among them have risen.

“There has been an increase of infections among pregnant women. This is new (development) in the course of the pandemic. Expectant mothers should be vaccinated without hesitation,” he said on Twitter.

The country's Coronavirus Scientific Committee has been monitoring the situation at schools as the country resumed in-person education on Sept. 6, he recalled, adding that no alarming situation has been reported so far.

Schools should never be closed again and to that end people should be fully vaccinated, along with receiving booster shots, Koca also noted.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 4.71 million lives in at least 192 countries and regions, with nearly 230 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US' Johns Hopkins University.