Authorities deny mange 'epidemic' at hospital

Administrators of Göztepe Training and Research Hospital, one of Istanbul's largest state-run hospitals, has denied allegations that a mange epidemic led to the closure of one of the wards.

The hospital's administrator Professor Ali Rıza Odabaş told reporters at a press conference that seven people including five nurses and two employees of a subcontractor working at the construction of an additional facility at the hospital were infected with mange. Odabaş said none of the patients at the hospital were infected and denied the hospital was "source of an epidemic." He said the ward where the infected personnel were working at was already being moved to another part of the hospital before the mange cases and the media reports portrayed the moving "as if the ward was placed under quarantine because of the mange."