Another 21,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines were delivered to the Turkish Cypriot community on Friday.

The doses, all Johnson & Johnson, were delivered through the Ayios Dhometios corssing point.

The delivery was arranged through the bicommunal technical committee on health.

This was the biggest batch of vaccine doses delivered to the north among the ones the government secured through the EU.

Turkish Cypriot co-chair of the committee, Cenk Soydan, said the north received so far also 24,700 AstraZeneca vaccine doses, 10,350 Pfizer/BioNTech. With Friday’s delivery the number of doses rose to 56,050, he said.

According to Soydan the north has also received 190,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine from Turkey.

In total 18 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated in the north, according to statements of ‘health minister’ Unal Ustel on Thursday. Ustel said that, including the people who are waiting for their second dose, this rate rises to 22 per cent. He said the goal was to vaccinate 60 per cent of the population by July.