Turkey: Daily coronavirus recoveries exceed new cases

By Havva Kara Aydin and Firdevs Bulut

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Thursday confirmed 1,186 more cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total tally over 200,000, according to the country's health minister.

Citing the Health Ministry data, Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter that a total of 1,543 more COVID-19 patients recovered in Turkey over the past 24 hours, bringing the overall number to 176,965.

Turkey registered 1,186 new infections in the past day and the total number of cases nationwide reached 202,284, showed the data.

The country's death toll from the disease rose to 5,167, with 17 new fatalities reported over the last 24 hours.

Healthcare professionals conducted over 49,714 tests for the disease in the past day, raising the total count to over 3.48 million.

Koca stressed that the highest number of confirmed cases are seen in Istanbul, Ankara, Gaziantep, Konya, and Bursa provinces of the country.

The pandemic has so far claimed over 517,100 lives in 188 countries and regions since it originated in China last December.

The US, Brazil, Russia, and India are currently the worst-hit countries in the world.

More than 10.74 million COVID-19 cases have been reported around the world, with recoveries exceeding 5.51 million, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.