COVID-19 vaccination | Eligibility age dropped to 30 in Turkey

* Source and photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

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Since January 26, 2021, the Health Ministry of Turkey has been sharing the number of COVID-19 vaccines administered across the country on a provisional basis with a regularly updated map.

According to the data shared by the Ministry, as of 11 a.m. on June 21, the number of people who received the first dose was 27,474,139, the number of people who received both doses was 14,437,848. The total number of vaccine doses administered thus far was 41,911,987.

In a statement made by Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Saturday (June 19), it has been announced that citizens aged 30 and over can get an appointment to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.

"The age limit for vaccine appointments has been reduced to 30. People over 30 years old can make an appointment as of tomorrow," he tweeted.

5 million doses have been delivered

A Turkish Airlines cargo plane carrying five million more doses of China's CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine landed in Turkey's capital Ankara on Saturday, the Health Ministry has said in a separate statement.

The jabs will reportedly be distributed to hospitals and health centers across the country after necessary tests. The number of Sinovac vaccine doses received in the last 10 days has reached eight million.

Vaccination began in Turkey on January 13

The first COVID-19 vaccine was administered in Turkey on January 13, 2021 and Health Minister Fahrettin Koca was the first person to receive the vaccine in Turkey. To date, Turkey has been giving the Sinovac and BioNTech jabs, and signed an agreement for the Sputnik V vaccine.

Over 2.4 billion doses in the world

According to the figures shared by the World Health Organization (WHO), 2,412,226,768 doses of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines were administered across the world as of June 19, 2021.

Compiling the data on COVID-19 vaccination across the world, the "ourworldindata.org" has documented that the highest number of vaccine jabs have been administered by China with 1,489,000,000 jabs. It is followed by the US with 317,177,000 doses, by India with 276,693,000 doses, by Brazil with 86,475,000 doses and by the UK with 73,766,000 vaccine doses. (AÖ/SD)