In the last 24 hours, 561 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed and 15 more people died after contracting COVID-19, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted on Wednesday evening.
“The number of patients we’ve lost so far is 59. The overall number of [confirmed coronavirus] cases 2,433,” Koca said on Twitter, adding that in one day officials had conducted 5,035 tests.
The first case of coronavirus in Turkey was confirmed by the minister on March 11.
Experts say the exponential increase in the number of cases poses a great danger to the Turkish public.
First seen in the Chinese city of Wuhan, COVID-19 has spread rapidly around the world, infecting nearly 460,000 people worldwide and killing more than 20,000.