FILE PHOTO: A worker in a protective suit sprays disinfectant at Grand Bazaar, known as the Covered Bazaar, to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Istanbul, Turkey, March 25, 2020. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
April 19, 2020
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s confirmed coronavirus cases have risen to 86,306, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Sunday, the highest total for any country outside Europe or the United States.
An increase of 3,977 cases in the last 24 hours lifted Turkey’s confirmed tally above that of China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged.
Koca said 127 more people have died, taking the death toll to 2,017. A total of 11,976 people have recovered from coronavirus so far, and the number of tests carried out over the past 24 hours came to 35,344, the minister said.
Turkey only reported its first coronavirus patient on March 10, but has seen the number of confirmed cases rise sharply since then. It now has the seventh-highest total in the world. So far it has tested more than 634,000 people.
(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
