The Turkish Medical Association’s COVID-19 Advisory and Monitoring Board has reported on the 2-month process that started on 11 March 2020, with the first confirmed case of coronavirus in Turkey. The “TMA’s Second-Month Report on COVID-19 Pandemic” has been released during an online press conference.
TMA Central Council Chair Prof Sinan Adıyaman shared the council’s statement on the drafting of the report while Prof Kayıhan Pala delivered a presentation on the highlights of the report.
Reminding that the fight against COVID-19 must be undertaken with serious cooperation and coordination only using scientific methods and epidemiological data, Professor Adıyaman said, “Pandemic is managed through decisions which we do not exactly know are taken by the Ministry of Health’s own ‘scientific advisory board’, by the ‘bureaucrats at the Ministry’, or by another ‘authorized board’, which directly affect the doctors and health professionals working in the field alongside the 81 million citizens in our country, and the consequences of some of which give us cause for concern.”
During his presentation on the contents of the report, Prof Kayıhan Pala related some public health methods adopted by countries, the pandemic strategy adopted in Turkey, and observations on various themes such as the health of health professionals, cases, reporting of deaths, and records. Pointing out that the management of COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey is far from being transparent, Professor Pala underlined the fact that professional organisations and independent scientists are unable to assess the true impact of the pandemic since the Ministry of Health did not disclose the number of possible/suspected cases which have been clinically and epidemiologically diagnosed with COVID-19, yet have not been confirmed with laboratory tests, or the number of deaths.
