BUDAPEST, March 11 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian government on Thursday reported a new high of 8,312 COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour span, raising the national total to 489,172.
The previous record of 7,269 new cases was registered on March 6.
In the past 24 hours, 172 people have died from the disease, taking the toll to 16,497 in the country, whereas 344,267 have recovered. Currently, 8,329 patients are being treated in hospitals, including 911 on ventilators, according to figures from the government's coronavirus information website.
As of Thursday, 1,148,557 people had received at least one shot of a vaccine, while 327,428 had two jabs, the website showed.
"The elderly is the age group that had the highest ratio of registration for vaccination against COVID-19," said Gergely Gulyas, head of the Prime Minister's Office, at a press briefing on Thursday.
Those in this group who are still unregistered will be contacted with a letter encouraging them to follow suit, Gulyas said, adding that "vaccination is the only tool to rid ourselves of the pandemic."
The Hungarian government has been enriching its vaccination program with Russian and Chinese vaccines to fight the third wave of the pandemic in the country. So far, it has gained access to vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Sinopharm.
Hungary, the first European Union member state to purchase and authorize the use of Chinese vaccines, started to administer the Sinopharm vaccine on Feb. 24.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban received a jab of the Sinopharm vaccine on Feb. 28, two days after Hungarian President Janos Ader opted for the vaccine. Enditem
