Turkey has administered more than 95 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since launching a mass immunization campaign in January, according to official figures released Thursday.
Over 48.62 million people have received their first vaccine dose, while more than 37.43 million are now fully vaccinated, the Health Ministry said.
On Wednesday, the ministry reported 23,946 new coronavirus cases and 290 more virus-related deaths.
Turkey offers two vaccine choices: inactive jab made by China’s Sinovac and the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech.
A fourth dose of an mRNA vaccine is administered on demand for nationals who were previously been given two doses of an inactive vaccine plus one dose of an mRNA but traveling to countries that only allow foreigners who had two doses of an mRNA jab, according to the Health Ministry.
Also, people who have contracted COVID-19 will be eligible for vaccination a month after recovery, as opposed to the previous period of three months.
Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 4.5 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 219 million cases reported worldwide, according to the U.S.’ Johns Hopkins University.
