Turkey sees decline in COVID-19 new cases: Minister

The daily new COVID-19 cases in Turkey started again to decline after a week of a slight increase, said Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca.

Turkey reported 1,214 new COVID-19 cases and 23 more deaths, taking the tally of infections in the country to 185,245 and the death toll to 4,905, the minister tweeted on Friday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Istanbul and Ankara have reported the lowest numbers of cases in the past week. New cases continue to decrease across the country," Koca said.

A total of 1,494 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, raising the total number of recoveries to 157,516.

The minister said 41,316 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, raising the overall number of tests to 2,863,632.

Turkey is currently treating 769 patients in intensive care units, while 310 are intubated.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case in the country on March 11 and stepped up the normalization process since June 1.

In the past week, daily new cases had exceeded 1,500, causing the Turkish authorities to warn citizens to obey individual precautions.

Turkey and China have supported each other in the fight against COVID-19.

The leaders of the two countries held a phone conversation on April 8, pledging to cooperate on combating the pandemic and deepen the bilateral ties.

China has facilitated the procurement of medical supplies by Turkey. On April 10, Chinese doctors and medical experts held a video conference with Turkish counterparts to share China's experience in treating coronavirus patients, protecting medical workers, and controlling the spread of the virus.