Turkey expanding coronavirus testing criteria

Duvar English

Turkey is expanding its criteria for who gets tested for the coronavirus to include a wider group of patients, daily Hürriyet reported on June 8. Accordingly, those who have just one of the following complaints will be also tested for the virus: sore throat, headache, muscle pain, loss of taste and smell or diarrhea.

The Health Ministry's move came after current Covid-19 patients are less likely to show symptoms of fever, cough and respiratory difficulties – which were considered to be the most common symptoms of the virus until so far.

Prof. Mehmet Ceyhan, the head of the Infectious Diseases Association, said that when the virus initially broke in the world, 70 percent of patients showed symptoms of fever and coughing, but today this figure fell to 20 percent. Ceyhan also said that 45 percent of positive cases in the world were asymptotic.

“Therefore it is good that the Ministry has included the sore throat, headache, muscle pain, loss of taste and smell and diarrhea in the Covid-19 definition. Heartaches and changes in the skin color can even be added to this list,” Ceyhan was quoted as saying by Hürriyet.

He said that according to predictions, some 300,000 people in Turkey have the virus and are not aware of it. “It is believed that every one person out of 100 in Istanbul carry the virus,” he said.

Health Ministry's Coronavirus Science Committee determines the criteria for who can be tested for the virus.

Under the previous criteria, patients needed to show one of the following symptoms to avail of diagnostic testing for the virus: cough, difficulty in breathing or fever.