UPDATE - Over 129.3M coronavirus vaccine shots given in Turkey to date

UPDATES WITH TURKISH HEALTH MINISTRY STATEMENT

By Gozde Bayar, Seda Sevencan, and Burak Dag

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey has administered over 129.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched an immunization drive in January, according to official figures released on Monday.

More than 56.8 million people have received a first jab, while over 51.4 million have been fully vaccinated, the Health Ministry said.

Turkey has also given third booster shots to more than 17.6 million people.

The ministry also confirmed 26,099 new COVID-19 infections, 157 deaths, and 22,024 recoveries over the past day.

As many as 362,535 virus tests were done in the past 24 hours.

Separately, the Turkish Health Ministry denied reports that 42% of the COVID-19 cases in Turkey are the omicron strain of the virus.

As of Dec. 1, a total of 3,073 of the 3,344 samples that were sequenced and entered into the official system were of the delta variant, and 42 were of the omicron variant, the ministry said in a statement.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 5.4 million lives in at least 192 countries and regions, with more than 280 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US’ Johns Hopkins University.