ADDS ADDITIONAL KOCA REMARKS
By Muhammet Emin Avundukluoglu and Burak Bir
ANKARA (AA) - There is a high possibility of the coronavirus getting into Turkey although no cases have been reported, the country's health minister said Tuesday.
"The possibility of this epidemic in Turkey is very high. We can just say this: The virus has not been detected yet [in Turkey]," Fahrettin Koca told parliament's Health Committee.
Koca urged the public to take precautions against the virus in the coming month.
"We should limit human touch, travel abroad as little as possible, self-quarantine ourselves, and take special care of the elderly," he said.
He dismissed reports that an elderly U.S. woman tested positive for the virus after visiting Turkey.
"In records from the last two weeks, there is only one 86-year-old female U.S. national. She did not visit Turkey. On March 3, she was on a connecting flight from Tirana [Albania] to Washington via Istanbul," he said on Twitter.
Koca said he would meet with the country’s education minister in coming days and discuss temporally closing schools.
The Turkish presidency can publish a notice restricting civil servants' international travel except in obligatory cases, he added.
Turkey last month closed its border gates with Iran, a hard-hit country by the virus, and canceled all flights to that country.
The global death toll from coronavirus is more than 4,000, with greater than 113,000 confirmed cases in 110 countries, according to the World Health Organization.