Health Minister Dr. Fahrettin KOCA had a video conference with World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe Dr. He had a video conference call with Hans Kluge.
At this meeting, the increase in cases in the European region, the mutation in the coronavirus, the current situation in Turkey and vaccine studies were discussed. Kluge congratulated and thanked Turkey for following the WHO's recommendations.
Thanking Turkey for following the WHO's recommendations, Europe Director Kluge said: “President ERDOGAN's activities and leadership are appreciated by all countries. I want to congratulate you on your powerful data and information delivery system. At the same time, I congratulate you for increasing the scope of the vaccine studies conducted in Turkey, the rapid diagnostic kit studies and the work you have done on the genome sequencing of the virus.”
Sharing the latest data in Turkey and drawing attention to the decline in the number of cases minister KOCA said:
"We have entered a period in which the number of cases is increasing in Europe and our figures are gradually decreasing in reverse. We do not particularly compromise on rapid testing, isolation and contact tracking. Our filiation team number consists of 16 thousand crews each consisting of 3 people. At the moment, we don't have 16 thousand cases a day. I mean, 1 team doesn't even have 1 patient. We don't want to reduce that number either because we think the next 2-3 months are important.
We don't want to reduce our number of filiation teams unless we have widespread vaccination. Our bed capacity is at a significant level. Every day, our number of empty beds is increasing.”
"WE HAVE COME A LONG WAY IN DEVELOPING OUR OWN VACCINE"
Emphasizing that they have determined plans for vaccine distribution and providing information about domestic vaccine studies, Minister KOCA said: “We have also come a long way in developing our own vaccine. 13 vaccine studies conducted in my country are also included in the lists published by WHO. I think that we will complete the development of the first domestic vaccine, which is supported by the Turkish Institutes of Health, a research and development unit affiliated to my ministry, and is at the clinical stage in a very short time." said.
Koca and Kluge, who also exchanged views on the mutation that appeared in the UK, agreed to share strong information about the development that caused concern. "We have implemented some travel measures related to the countries where the mutation is seen and quarantine measures for those who come from these countries. I'd like to point out that we've found this mutation in 15 of the people we've quarantined so far. In the coming period, we will continue to share the results in order to contribute to global cooperation by increasing the sequence of cases in our country." said.
