ANKARA

More than 700,000 health care workers in Turkey have received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the first four days of the vaccination campaign in the country, the Health Ministry said.

Turkey started administering the CoronaVac vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech company to health care staff on Thursday.

After inoculation of over 1 million health care workers in Turkey, residents and workers in care and nursing homes and disabled care facilities will be vaccinated. This priority group will be followed by people aged 65 and over.

The first batch of 3 million doses of the vaccine arrived in Turkey on Dec. 30.

Two doses of the vaccine will be administered 28 days apart. Those who recovered from COVID-19 will not be vaccinated in four to six months following their recovery.

Turkey has been implementing curfews on both weeknights and weekends since last month as part of efforts to curb the spread of the virus.

Earlier this week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that restrictions will be eased gradually as COVID-19 cases have been significantly decreasing recently.

*Writing by Seda Sevencan