ANKARA
Anadolu Agency is here with a rundown of the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic and other news in Turkey and around the world.
Coronavirus and other developments in Turkey
Turkey on Wednesday reported 11,520 new coronavirus cases, including 689 symptomatic patients.
With the latest cases, the country's overall caseload surpassed 2.73 million and the tally of fatalities stands at 28,771 after 65 people died over the past 24 hours, according to Health Ministry data.
As many as 7,191 people won their battle against the disease, bringing the number of recoveries to near 2.6 million.
In a statement on the latest results of Phase 3 trials in Turkey of the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said its overall efficiency was 83.5% with a hospitalization prevention rate of 100%.
In a separate statement released after a meeting of Turkey's Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board, Koca noted that the vaccination push had started to reduce the magnitude of the outbreak in the country.
Turkey will send 20,000 more COVID-19 vaccine doses to Turkish Cyprus this week, bringing total vaccine aid to 100,000 doses, said Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay.
Turkey could sign an agreement with Egypt after negotiating maritime jurisdictions, the nation's foreign minister said Wednesday.
On Turkey's new human rights roadmap revealed Tuesday, Mevlut Cavusoglu said: "It will boost our relations with EU institutions while expanding fundamental rights and freedoms."
Legal security is "the most important principle" in Turkey's groundbreaking new Human Rights Action Plan, designed as a response to the wants and needs of the Turkish public, the nation's justice minister said.
Expressing solidarity with Greece, Mevlut Cavusoglu Wednesday offered help to his Greek counterpart after a strong earthquake rocked the country, according to diplomatic sources.
COVID-19 updates worldwide
Global herd immunity against COVID-19 will take two to three years, China’s top respiratory disease expert said.
At least two patients in South Korean hospitals died Wednesday after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine against the coronavirus, according to local media.
Cambodia has received its first doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine from the global COVAX initiative, according to a statement by the prime minister.
Kenya received over one million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine through the global COVAX facility early Wednesday.
Greece confirmed 2,702 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, setting a new record on daily cases since the beginning of the year, health authorities reported Wednesday.
Other global developments
A 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit the northwest of the Greek city of Larissa on Wednesday.
A military base housing US troops in western Iraq was attacked with rockets on Wednesday, local media reported.
A civilian contractor at Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq died after suffering cardiac arrest while the facility was being targeted in an early-morning rocket attack, the Pentagon said.
The Myanmar military's crackdown amid mass anti-coup demonstrations led to the deaths of 38 people on Wednesday alone, the UN's special envoy for the country warned.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened a probe Wednesday into crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories.
At least 20 migrants perished Wednesday after human smugglers pushed 80 off a boat along the East African coast of Obock in Djibouti.
The defendant in a 2018 Toronto van attack who killed 10 people was found guilty Wednesday.
Judge Anne Molloy found Alek Minassian, 25, guilty of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.
