"Today 29 new cases of infection were confirmed, so the number of those infected has reached 47. The last infected people are linked to the United States, the Middle East, and Europe", Koca wrote on Twitter.
Bugün 29 yeni tanı kondu. Yeni tanı konanlarla birlikte toplam hasta sayımız 47 oldu. Son 29 vakanın tamamı doğrudan veya dolaylı olarak ABD, Ortadoğu ve Avrupa temaslıdır, 3’ü Umreden döndü. Yurt dışı teması risk olmaya devam edecek. Tedbirleri sıkı uygulayalım.
— Dr. Fahrettin Koca (@drfahrettinkoca) March 16, 2020
"Three of those infected returned from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. The risk of infection from abroad remains high", he said.
Earlier, Ankara said it was evacuating its citizens from Germany, where the number of confirmed cases reached 4,838 on Sunday, with 12 fatalities.
More than 169,000 people in 148 countries and territories have been confirmed to have contracted COVID-19, and over 6,500 have died since the virus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei province, last December.