Turkish model proves effective in COVID-19 treatment: Minister

ISTANBUL

Turkey has employed a model that has proved to be very effective in the treatment of COVID-19 patients, the country’s health minister has said.

The ability to make fast and smart changes to the treatment protocol is the key to the success to the Turkish model, Fahrettin Koca suggested.

“There is no doubt that the main reason behind our success in the treatment of the disease is the heroic efforts and work by the health care personnel,” Koca told Hürriyet newspaper, adding that the model, which Turkey has developed and is currently implementing, help the company effectively fight against the outbreak.

Koca explained that unlike the other countries, in Turkey doctors do not advise people with symptoms such as fever, store throat and coughing to take antipyretics and stay at home, but invite them to hospital and immediately start treatment by administering chloroquine to the people in suspicious cases without waiting for the results from the test results.

Another difference between the methods Turkey and other countries use is that in addition to chloroquine, an antibiotic, called azithromycin, is used in the early stages of the treatment, Koca noted.

Doctors in Turkey have also been administrating widely and in the early stage of the treatment, a drug called favipiravir, which was first used in China for the intubated patients, the minister said.

In Turkey, high pressure oxygen therapy is also administered to the patients with breathing problems again in the early stage of the treatment, which reduced the number of deaths from respiratory failure.

And finally, lying patients with serious respiratory problems face down on their beds was another method Turkish doctors use in the treatment of the disease.

“We have been using this very simple method since the start of the pandemic. Other countries followed suit and employed this approach,” Koca said.

He noted that the heroic work by health care staff, combined with the successful treatment model adopted, has brought about the success in the fight against the virus.