Turkey will donate medical aid to Bangladesh, Georgia and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) to support the global common fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Turkey will send the aid to Bangladesh under a bilateral agreement, according to a notice published in the country's Official Gazette on Thursday.
The agreement between Turkey and Bangladesh on "donations in the field of health" was signed on Oct 12, 2020, in Ankara, it said.
As a "gesture of friendship and goodwill," Turkey will donate medical supplies including 20 ventilators, 10,000 gowns, 10,000 N95-type masks, 10,000 protective coveralls, 2,000 face shields and 5,000 protective glasses.
Turkey, based on another agreement signed on Oct. 9, 2020, will donate to the Georgian government 20 ventilators, 50,000 diagnostic kits, 2,000 boxes of hydroxychloroquine tablets, 4,000 boxes of favipiravir and 2,000 boxes of linezolid as well as other medicines used in coronavirus treatment.
The aid sent to Georgia will be put toward the nation's primary health services and also includes 5,000 N95 masks, 5,000 gloves, 1,000 coveralls, 1,000 face shields and 1,000 glasses.
Turkey and the TRNC also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Nov. 20, 2020, in the field of health.
In the scope of the MoU, Turkey will send 30,000 coronavirus diagnostics kits and 30,000 viral nucleic acid isolation kits. Additionally, an agreement with the Turkish Cypriot government signed on Dec. 2, 2020, included Turkey providing 30,000 units of viral transport media used in diagnosing the coronavirus.
The Turkish donations to the TRNC are meant as a "gesture of friendship and goodwill."
Last month, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stressed the importance of international solidarity and aid during the pandemic, noting that Turkey had provided help to some 156 countries and nine international organizations since the virus emerged in China about a year ago.
This September, speaking on the United Nations General Assembly's 75th anniversary, Erdoğan also said: "As the most generous aid donor country, in terms of the ratio of Turkish assistance to its (gross domestic product) GDP, we have tried to alleviate the problems caused by the pandemic with our available means."
