ANKARA, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The number of Turkey's daily COVID-19 vaccine shots has exceeded 1.5 million, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Saturday.
Turkey has started to administer vaccines to its citizens aged 30 and above, Koca tweeted.
Turkey on Saturday confirmed 5,480 new COVID-19 cases, including 494 symptomatic patients, raising the total number in the country to 5,365,208, according to the health ministry.
The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 51 to 49,122, while the total recoveries climbed to 5,228,419 after 4,195 more recovered in the last 24 hours.
The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients stands at 3.4 percent while the number of seriously ill patients is 829 in the country, said the ministry.
A total of 215,496 tests were conducted over the past day, taking the overall number of tests in Turkey to 58,339,486.
Turkey started mass COVID-19 vaccination on Jan. 14 after the authorities approved the emergency use of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine. More than 26,576,000 people have been vaccinated so far.
Turkey reported its first COVID-19 case on March 11, 2020.
