Number of COVID-19 cases in Turkey drops further - health ministry

Turkey on Saturday reported over 7,500 new coronavirus cases, down from 8,314 registered the previous day, according to Health Ministry's data.

A total of 7,550 cases, including 902 symptomatic patients, were confirmed across the country, the data showed.

Turkey's overall case tally has crossed 2.38 million. The nationwide death toll hit 23,832, with 168 fatalities over the past day.

As many as 8,005 more patients recovered in the country, bringing the total past 2.25 million.

More than 27.22 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in Turkey to date, with 156,792 done over the past 24 hours.

The latest figure shows that the number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition dropped to 2,265.

On Thursday, Turkey kicked off a mass COVID-vaccination campaign with healthcare workers being the first to get the jab.

The Health Ministry announced on Saturday over 650,000 health care workers in the country have received the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

On Wednesday, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca became the first person to receive the Chinese vaccine jab in the country after Turkey's official drug and medical equipment body approved CoronaVac for emergency use.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was also vaccinated on Thursday.

The first batch of 3 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinovac arrived in Turkey on Dec. 30.

Since last month, Turkey has been imposing curfews on both weeknights and weekends as part of its efforts to curb the virus' spread.

Since December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 2.01 million lives in 191 countries and regions.

Over 94.07 million cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries now over 51.84 million, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.

The US, India, and Brazil remain the worst-hit countries in terms of cases.