Corona arrives in Turkey

TURKEY - In Brief 12 Mar 2020 by Atilla Yesilada
The first diagnosed case of coronavirus infection was announced about 36 hours ago in Turkey.I’ve waited to write this update, going by the wise words of our Health Minister Mr. Fahrettin Koca that “one case does not make an outbreak”.Since then I’ve been surveying all reliable news sources that I can access whether there are other cases diagnosed.To the best of my information there none that I can confirm even with 75% reliability. Nevertheless, I wish to warn our readers that an outbreak is likely.I and my colleague Dr Ucer are currently striving to collect data and anecdotes about how the pandemic is affecting the Turkish economy and what could possibly happen to it, if there were an outbreak. This brief is mostly about listing my suspicions that an outbreak will occur. First, there is a huge difference between “presence of the virus in the population” and “diagnosed cases”. I believe the government that there are no other diagnosed cases, but that that doesn’t mean the “Walking Sick” are not traipsing among us. Isn’t this the main difference between Covid-19 and SARS? I suspect an outbreak because both Turkish Family Medicine Practitioners and Turkish Physicians Association complained about the inadequacy of the infrastructure to diagnose potential cases. The former complaints that its members have not been sent test kits, even though formally speaking they are part of the state health system. The latter argues that test kits are not very accurate, with suspects requiring a lung tomography to finalize the diagnosis. Finally, as the Health Minister admitted there are at best “3-4 centers” in the country which can process the test samples forwarded to them. Turkey ha...

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