Over 11M people fully vaccinated in Turkey: Health Ministry
Nurse Hülya Şahin administers the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine to a person at a hospital in Ankara, Turkey, Saturday, April 3, 2021. (AP Photo)


Over 27.86 million people in Turkey have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine since the country launched a mass vaccination campaign Jan. 14, the Health Ministry said Sunday.

More than 15.94 million people have received their first doses, while over 11.91 million have been fully vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry data.

The ministry also confirmed a total of 7,839 new cases, including 710 symptomatic patients, across the country in the past 24 hours.

Turkey's overall case tally is now over 5.18 million, while the nationwide death toll reached 46,268 with 197 more fatalities over the past day.

As many as 11,202 more patients won the battle against the virus, taking the total number of recoveries past 5 million.

Over 52.3 million COVID-19 tests have been done to date.

The latest figures show that the number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition stands at 1,843.

Turkey started a gradual normalization process May 17 following a 17-day lockdown that significantly reduced infections.

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 3.4 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 166.8 million cases reported worldwide, according to the United States-based Johns Hopkins University.

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