Turkey administers over 26.71M doses of COVID-19 jabs

By Dilan Pamuk, Burak Bir and Rabia Iclal Turan

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey has administered over 26.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since launching a mass vaccination campaign on Jan. 14, according to official figures.

A total of 26,720,087 doses have been administered in Turkey as of Tuesday evening, according to Health Ministry data.

In total, more than 15.3 million people have received their first doses, while over 11.4 million have been fully vaccinated.

The Health Ministry confirmed a total of 11,937 cases, including 916 symptomatic patients, across the country in the past 24 hours.

Turkey's overall case tally is now over 5.13 million, while the nationwide death toll reached 45,186, with 203 more fatalities over the past day.

As many as 10,125 more patients won the battle against the virus, taking the total number of recoveries past 4.97 million.

Over 51.29 million coronavirus tests have been conducted to date, including 217,276 since Monday.

The latest figures show that the number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition stands at 2,232.

Turkey's National Education Minister Ziya Selcuk said on Tuesday that all teachers and school employees over the age of 40 were now eligible to receive vaccinations.

The total number of cases per 100,000 people by province was 184.78 in the metropolis Istanbul, 152.63 in the capital Ankara, and 93.86 in western Izmir, according to weekly data shared by Health Minister Fahrettin Koca.

Koca said the provinces that have shown the greatest decrease in case numbers over the last week were Kastamonu in the Black Sea region, Tekirdag and Istanbul in the northwest, Bayburt in the northeast and Zonguldak, also in the Black Sea region.

"It is in our hands to make this good course permanent. We succeeded before, we can do it again," he added.

Turkey started a gradual normalization process on Monday from a 17-day lockdown that started on April 29 after the measures led to a drop in cases nationwide.

Until June 1, the country will enforce weeknight curfews from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., while weekends will be under full lockdown.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 3.39 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with nearly 163.73 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US' Johns Hopkins University.

The US, India, and Brazil remain the worst-hit countries in terms of the number of infections.