Photo taken on Jan. 6, 2021 shows COVID-19 vaccines at a packaging plant of Sinovac Research and Development Co., Ltd. in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Sunday that 6.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines would arrive in Turkey from China on Monday.

Koca said in a tweet that the deliveries are part of a second planned shipment of 10 million doses of the vaccines developed by the Chinese company Sinovac.

"The rest will be delivered in a way that the mass inoculation program of Turkey will continue without interruption," the minister added.

After receiving the first batch of 3 million doses of vaccines from China at the end of December, Turkey launched the mass vaccination program on Jan. 14.

More than 1.24 million people have been vaccinated so far, according to the Health Ministry data.