There have been 90 officially confirmed deaths from the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) in Tajikistan since the virus was confirmed to have spread to the country, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population (MoHSPP).

A MoHSPP says one more officially confirmed coronavirus-linked death was reported in the country on Saturday (December 26).

According to the data from the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population (MoHSPP), 67 new officially confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) were reported in Tajikistan over weekends (December 26-27), bringing a total number of the officially confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country to 13,205 as of the morning of December 28.  

114 COVID-19 patients were reportedly discharged after recovery over the past weekends.  In all, 12,692 (95.8 percent) coronavirus patients have reportedly recovered in the country as of the morning of December 28. 

The COVID-19 pandemic in Tajikistan is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).  The virus was confirmed to have spread to Tajikistan when its index cases, in Dushanbe and Khujand, were confirmed on April 30, 2020.      

COVID-19 has now reached every continent after Antarctica recorded its first outbreak on December 20.  The virus is reportedly affecting 218 countries and territories around the world and two international conveyances.

Coronavirus cases around the globe have been reported at 81,144,994 since China reported its first cases to the World Health Organization (WHO) in December, Worldometer said today morning (04:20 GMT).  Of them, 57,293,765 have recovered and 1,771,981 have died.

Meanwhile, mass vaccination programs began to roll out across Europe on Sunday after several countries reported cases of a more contagious variant of the coronavirus.

On what some have dubbed "V-Day," Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain began inoculations, starting out with health care workers and those most at risk of contracting the disease, .

The coordinated vaccination campaign of unprecedented scale in the European Union, home to almost 450 million people, is a crucial step in curbing the pandemic.

Despite national lockdowns, restrictions on movement, shuttering of restaurants and cancellations of Christmas gatherings, the virus has stalked Europe into the dark winter months, according to The New York Times. Recall, the spread of a more contagious variant of the virus in Britain has raised such alarm that much of continental Europe rushed to close its borders to travelers coming from the country, effectively plunging the nation as a whole into quarantine.