ANKARA
There is no outbreak of swine flu in Turkey, Turkish Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu told The Anadolu Agency during an editors' meeting at its headquarters in the capital Ankara Wednesday.
About the deadly virus, which is also referred to as H1N1, Muezzinoglu said: “There is no question of a swine flu epidemic.”
He revealed that at least 33 people died in Turkey because of the swine flu since the beginning of the 2014-2015 flu season. Nine people died from the swine flu in Istanbul, another seven died in Samsun, while other deaths were reported in Erzurum, Sivas, Mersin and Canakkale, he said.
Authorities define the flu season as between the months of October and April when the virus usually appears in the patients.
He assured that the government had taken all necessary measures to deal with the situation and at the moment there was no need for any additional measures.
He noted that a rise in the number of flu patients was noted during the last 20 days in Europe, including France, Netherlands and Spain.
“A rise in patients suffering from the flu was also noticed here too,” the minister said, “Yet, despite the increase in the number of sick patients, we did not have the need to increase the number of doctors on duty,” he added.
According to Muezzinoglu, almost half of the people, who died from the swine flu were aged over 65 and suffered from other diseases along with the deadly virus. Also, 18 patients infected by H1N1 were aged between 25 and 55.
Muezzinoglu noted that there were more than 300 types of influenza, adding: “This year’s virus strain will mutate next year and take a different form. Thereby, vaccines now can affect the virus by 30 percent, but there is still no vaccine that kills the virus by 100 percent.”
On Monday, the health minister also said that public hospitals have been provided with 250,000 antiviral drugs to deal with various strains of the virus, which would be available to patients free of cost.
A scientific committee under the Ministry of Health in early March had ruled out a swine flu outbreak and predicted that the flu season would be over by the end of the month.
