CAIRO, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's total number of COVID-19 cases exceeded 2.63 million on Saturday, while Iran reported 7,922 new cases of coronavirus.

Turkey on Saturday reported 7,857 new COVID-19 cases, including 635 symptomatic patients, taking the total number of positive cases in the country to 2,631,876.

The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 80 to 27,983, while the total recoveries climbed to 2,518,758, according to the Turkish Health Ministry.

Turkey started mass COVID-19 vaccination on Jan. 14 after the authorities approved the emergency use of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine. More than 5.51 million people have been vaccinated so far.

Turkey will start a normalization process from COVID-19 measures on March 1 in line with a series of criteria, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Saturday.

Koca said on his Twitter account that Turkey will launch an "on-site decision period" and classify all the provinces according to different risk levels.

Iran's Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said Saturday that the borders between Iran and Iraq will be closed over the resurgence of COVID-19 in the Iranian southwestern province of Khuzestan.

"To control the coronavirus outbreak in Khuzestan province, Iran's borders with Iraq will be closed and commuting to the province is not allowed," Rahmani Fazli was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency.

Also on Saturday, Iran's Health Ministry reported 7,922 daily COVID-19 cases, raising the total nationwide infections to 1,566,081.

The pandemic has so far claimed 59,409 lives in Iran, up by 68 in the past 24 hours, said Sima Sadat Lari, the spokeswoman for Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, during her daily briefing.

Of the newly infected, 472 were hospitalized, said Lari. A total of 1,337,877 people have recovered from the disease and been discharged from hospitals, while 3,677 remain in intensive care units, she added.

The Iraqi Ministry of Health reported on Saturday 3,273 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total nationwide infections to 664,750.

It also reported 13 new deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 13,245, while the total recoveries in Iraq climbed by 1,978 to 616,507.

A separate statement by the ministry said that infection with the coronavirus has been increasing sharply recently due to the new strain of the virus, which is characterized by faster transmission.

"There are severe cases of the new strain of coronavirus that were recently detected among children and youths, so it is time for the entire society to take all measures to reduce infections among the citizens," the statement said.

It asked people to adhere to all health-protective measures and decisions issued by the Higher Committee for Health and National Safety, especially in wearing masks, physical distancing, continuously disinfecting hands and avoiding human gatherings, in addition, to avoid closed and narrow places.

Kuwait reported on Saturday 862 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 183,322.

The Kuwaiti Health Ministry also announced five more deaths, taking the death toll to 1,039. The tally of recoveries in Kuwait rose by 934 to 171,260.

The Qatari Health Ministry on Saturday announced 449 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 159,967.

Meanwhile, 420 more recovered from the virus, bringing the overall recoveries to 149,740, while the fatalities remained 256.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Saturday recorded 3,158 new COVID-19 cases and 15 more fatalities, raising its tally of infections to 368,175 and its death toll to 1,108.

The total number of recoveries in the UAE rose by 4,298 to 356,013.

Lebanon registered on Saturday 2,323 new COVID-19 cases, raising the number of infections to 353,371. Meanwhile, the number of deaths from the virus went up by 40 to 4,297.

The country received on Saturday the second batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Enditem

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