Turkey will implement thermal screenings for all international flights beginning Thursday to check for the new coronavirus, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Wednesday.
Koca was speaking in the capital Ankara after another meeting of a special board set up by the ministry for measures against the outbreak though no cases were reported in the country so far. On Feb. 3, Turkey decided to start scanning travelers coming from Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia through thermal cameras.
The minister reassured the public and called them not to believe in fake news making the rounds on social media about coronavirus cases. He said that they are in close contact with the World Health Organization (WHO). "As of today, coronavirus cases were reported in 27 countries outside China and more than 80% of the cases were people above the age of 60," he said. "The number of cases increases every day. So, we decided to start thermal screening for all arriving international flights. We want to eliminate any risk," he said. The minister added that they also distributed leaflets about the coronavirus to passengers going abroad. He said that although WHO did not recommend restriction on travel and trade yet, they decided to expand the scope of thermal screenings as a precaution. "Turkey has enough resources to implement such measures. We see a rising perception of a pandemic, so we believe it is correct to implement screening," he said.
He said frequent washing of hands and personal hygiene were critical to preventing the infection. "People suffering from other illnesses are advised to wear masks when in a crowd, but you don't have wear masks on other occasions," he said. Koca pointed out that mask prices recently surged and his ministry received a barrage of complaints on the issue. "We are monitoring the situation in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce," he said. Turkey has been among the major suppliers China turned to following the outbreak and sent millions of masks to the country while demand for masks also increased in Turkey. He also dismissed the rumors about a mask shortage and said Turkey had enough capacity to meet the demand.
Out of the 61 people, including evacuees from the virus' epicenter China's Wuhan, who were quarantined at a hospital in Ankara, Koca said the final result of tests were not available yet, but the monitoring process so far did not show that they were infected. A 14-day quarantine is in place at Zekai Tahir Burak hospital exclusively used for evacuees. Turkey wrapped up an evacuation operation from Wuhan last Saturday, airlifting 42 people, including Turkish, Azerbaijani, Albanian and Georgian nationals. Sixty-one people, including crew members of the military cargo plane bringing evacuees and doctors accompanying the evacuees, were placed in quarantine in the unused hospital.
Koca said they also worked on "a locally-made test kit" for the coronavirus.