Turkey quarantines thousands of pilgrims coming back from Saudi due to coronavirus outbreak
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Roshan Amiri
- . March 16, 2020
- . Update: March 16, 2020 12:50 pm
On Sunday, Turkey isolated thousands of pilgrims coming back from Saudi Arabia, authorities stated, in the wake of recording one more coronavirus case increasing the total to six.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca declared on Sunday, “All the travelers coming back from the pilgrimage are being kept in quarantine for precaution” in the capital Ankara.
On Saturday night, roughly 10,000 pilgrims came back from Saudi Arabia, the youth, and sports minister, Mehmet Kasapoglu, stated, Al-Arabiya reported.
Koca said the number of affirmed cases in Turkey reached six after one of the pilgrims who came back from Saudi Arabia was tested positive. “Those found with similar symptoms are tested and hospitalized as they returned to Turkey,” he added.
Turkey’s religious affairs authority, Diyanet, stated that the pilgrim travel is temporarily suspended from February 27.
“The number of coronavirus cases in Turkey has soared to 18 today,” stated Fahrettin Altun, the senior press secretary of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey has gathered all resources to fight against this “unprecedented emergency,” he included.
“We are executing firm monitoring protocols in our borders and also effectively strict steps at our airports,” he tweeted.
To control the spread of the novel coronavirus, Turkey has applied travel limitations on a sum of 15 nations, including Germany, France, and Italy.
Ankara has reported the closure of schools for about fourteen days from Monday and colleges to take a three-week holiday and also imposing restrictions on government employees’ to travel abroad.
