Turkey administers over 450,000 coronavirus vaccine doses in 1 day
Country has also lowered vaccine eligibility age to 40, says health minister
ANKARA
Turkey administered over 450,000 coronavirus vaccine doses on Sunday, the nation’s health minister said.
“We have administrated 456,000 vaccines today,” Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, citing his previous tweet, which said some 448,000 people had vaccination appointments for Sunday.
“There is a vaccine, there is time. We couldn't turn 8,000 people away just because they didn't have an appointment,” he added.
Turkey has also lowered the vaccine eligibility age to 40, Koca announced.
Turkey has administered over 33.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in mid-January, including first doses to nearly one-fourth of the country’s population of some 83.6 million, the Health Ministry announced Sunday.
More than 20 million people have gotten their first doses, while nearly 13.7 million have been fully vaccinated, according to ministry data.
During the last week, over 3 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered in Turkey.
Turkey reported 5,012 new coronavirus cases, including 454 symptomatic patients, over the last 24 hours. The number of new cases on Saturday was 6,076.
The country's total case tally is over 5.33 million, while the nationwide death toll has reached 48,721 with 53 new fatalities.
