UPDATE - Turkish Health Ministry Dismisses Reports About Coronavirus Outbreak At Country's Resorts

UPDATE - Turkish Health Ministry Dismisses Reports About Coronavirus Outbreak at Country's Resorts

ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th August, 2020) The Turkish Health Ministry does not record an increase in new cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country's resort regions, a ministry spokesman told Sputnik.

Earlier, the outbreak of COVID-19 at Turkish resorts was reported by Russian media, which cited a statement by Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, who said new coronavirus cases across the country as a whole were increasing. Koca said Tuesday the number of registered cases in Turkey had increased by 1,083 over the past 24 hours, with 18 deaths. A day earlier, he said 995 cases and 19 deaths had been registered.

"There is no outbreak of coronavirus in resort areas, there are no problems there.

We are recording an increase in the number of cases in large cities - Ankara, Istanbul, Konya, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep," the spokesman said.

He cited statistics for Turkey's Mediterranean Region, which includes the province of Antalya, according to which the number of new COVID-19 cases in it over the past week had decreased from 70 to 59.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Turkey's coronavirus case tally stands at 236,112, with 5,784 deaths and 219,506 recoveries.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a pandemic on March 11.

According to the WHO, the global coronavirus death toll has surpassed 696,000 people, with the number of cases worldwide exceeding 18.3 million.