WHO says it wasn't aware of Turkey's real Covid-19 numbers

Photo: AA/File

Click to read the article in Turkish

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that it didn't know the number of all cases in Turkey before the Ministry of Health started including asymptomatic cases in its daily count.

WHO asks every country to report all cases and it was "relieving" that Turkey finally started to do so, Dr. Irshad Ali Shaikh, the head of the WHO office in Turkey, told Deutsche Welle Turkish.

The accuracy of Turkey's official figures has been disputed by medical organizations and opposition politicians since the start of the outbreak.

In late September, Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca admitted that Turkey was not including asymptomatic cases in its daily count.

On November 25, the ministry announced that it started to announce all cases and has been reporting about 30,000 daily infections since then, confirming that Turkey is one of the most affected countries by the pandemic.

However, the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) said last week that the real number should be around 60,000.

Amid growing suspicion on the ministry figures, the İstanbul Municipality has also been announcing the daily number of deaths by an infectious disease since November 22.

The municipality's figures for İstanbul usually match or exceed the ministry's death toll for the entire country.

Turkey's numbers were "worrying" just as other countries, Shaikh said, adding that he hoped the new measures implemented at the start of December would prevent the spread of the virus.

The government has been enforcing a number of measures, including weeknight and weekend curfews to slow down the outbreak. (RT/VK)