Turkey on Friday reported 42,308 new coronavirus cases, the highest level since the beginning of the pandemic, according to its health ministry, Xinhua reported.

Among the new cases are 1,471 symptomatic patients, and the total number in the country has reached 3,400,296.

The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 179 to 31,892, while the total recoveries climbed to 3,059,462 after 24,419 more cases recovered in the last 24 hours.

The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients stands at 3.6 percent and the number of seriously ill patients is 2,182 in the country, said the ministry.

Turkey started mass vaccination for COVID-19 on January 14 after the authorities approved the emergency use of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine. More than 9,472,000 people have been vaccinated so far.

Turkey reported its first COVID-19 case on March 11, 2020.