Fahrettin Koca

Some 85 percent of new COVID-19 cases across Turkey are due to the U.K. variant, the country's health minister said on April 12, urging people to adhere to coronavirus measures to stem the spread of the virus.

Turkey plans to roll out its domestically developed vaccine against COVID-19 by the end of this summer, the country's health minister has said.

There are 18 Turkish vaccine candidates on the World Health Organization (WHO) list, Fahrettin Koca added, addressing the organization's media briefing on April 1.

Turkey has recorded 37,303 new coronavirus cases in the space of just 24 hours, the highest number since the beginning of the pandemic more than a year ago, health ministry data showed on March 30.

The government said on March 29 it would tighten restrictions on movement and gatherings because of rising infections, less than a month after easing them.

A resurgence of COVID-19 cases has recently been observed in Istanbul, marking the metropolis with more than 16 million population as a red province with very high-risk.

Turkey's health minister announced early on March 16 infection rates of the novel coronavirus across Turkey's 81 provinces on March 6-12 as part of a new weekly initiative.

"Normalization can be possible by following the measures," Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, sharing the statistics.

The public, particularly business owners in Turkey, will keep a close eye on the March 15 cabinet meeting to hear the government's assessment of the pandemic situation after Turkey has moved to a "controlled normalization" phase.

Erdoğan, who will chair the cabinet meeting, last week said that the virus variants are making it difficult "for us" to take decisions.

Turkey's Health Ministry has urged the utmost vigilance in all provinces amid a spike in COVID-19 variant-related infections, announcing a raft of measures to combat the spread of the disease.

Virus variants of different origins have infected nearly 42,000 people in dozens of provinces in Turkey, the country's health minister has said, warning that the new strains are spreading fast at a time when the country moved to a controlled normalization phase.

Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca attributed a rise in coronavirus cases on a faster spread of COVID-19 variations on March 10. 

Turkey is shifting to what officials dubbed "dynamic supervision model" to inspect the implementation of COVID-19-related measures after the country moved to a controlled normalization phase.

Starting from March 4, tens of thousands of personnel will be mobilized to carry out nationwide checks to see if coronavirus-related curbs are being strictly observed.