Almost 500 patients need respiratory assistance, hospitals treat nearly 5,000

https://www.facebook.com/koronavirus.gov.hu

Altogether 132 patients died of a Covid-related illness over the past 24 hours, while 8,394 new coronavirus infections were registered, koronavirus.gov.hu said on Thursday.

So far 5,986,727 people have received a first jab, while 5,764,573 have been fully vaccinated. Fully 1,475,000 Hungarians have received a booster jab. The number of active infections stands at 83,818, while

hospitals are treating 4,990 Covid-19 patients,

488 of whom need respiratory assistance. Since the first outbreak, 931,414 infections have been registered, while the number of fatalities has risen to 31,751. Fully 815,845 people have made a recovery.

There are 39,655 people in official quarantine, while the number of tests taken stands at 7,715,195.

Meanwhile, Hungary has delivered some

200,000 jabs of Covid vaccine to Istanbul to be shipped to African countries

as part of a donation by members of the Turkic Council. Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, presented the doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine to Turkic Council Secretary General Baghdad Amreyev at a joint press conference on Thursday.

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Speaking at the event, Szijjártó said that the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic had hit the world harder than expected. “It has made it even clearer that vaccination is the only way of protection and that those who have not been vaccinated are exposed to a much greater risk this time than in previous waves,” he said.

Szijjártó said that Hungary has sufficient vaccine supplies for domestic vaccination and has extra reserves to help other countries that are in a difficult situation. “This is why we immediately said yes to the Turkish initiative in the framework of which Turkey and Hungary are each to donate 200,000 doses of vaccine with Azerbaijan donating an additional 100,000 doses

to the most disadvantaged African countries

with the coordination of the Turkic Council, to save hundreds of thousands of lives,” he said.

The Turkic Council is an intergovernmental organisation established in 2009 to promote comprehensive cooperation among Turkic speaking states. Its members are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. Hungary has had observer status in the organisation since 2018.