Molnupiravir, an oral antiviral drug for COVID-19 treatment, will be used in Turkey starting next week, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said.
“Our citizens over the age of 65 and with chronic diseases will be treated with molnupiravir,” Koca said.
The minister also said that the recent jump in COVID-19 cases across Turkey was confirmed to be caused by the omicron variant.
“It was determined by the sampling gene sequencing that almost all the cases in our country were caused by omicron. The first and fastest spread of the omicron variant was in Istanbul,” he said.
Koca reminded that although Turkey has a strong health infrastructure, it does not have unlimited capacity.
“Although our hospital occupancy rates have reached challenging levels in some of our provinces, the occupancy rate of the service beds is 57.8%, the intensive care bed occupancy rate is 68.7% and the respirator occupancy rate is 31%. Our prediction that the current course will not strain our hospital capacity continues,” he added.
Noting that the shipment of the new series of the domestic COVID-19 vaccine, Turkovac, has started to city hospitals, Koca said, “The side-effect evaluation of our domestic vaccine is closely monitored. There have been no severe side effects reported so far. It has been scientifically proven that our domestic vaccine is effective and safe,” Koca said.
