Turkey’s confirmed Chinese coronavirus cases are surging upwards, figures released Sunday show. The number of infections now stands at 82,329, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, meaning Turkey has overtaken neighbouring Iran for the first time to register the highest tally in the Middle East.

Koca shared the figures on Twitter, saying 3,783 more people were infected with the coronavirus. The increase pushed Turkey’s confirmed tally within a few hundred of China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged in the city of Wuhan. “Despite an increase in tests, there’s a decrease in number of new cases,” Koca tweeted and urged: “Precaution, treatment.” Nearly 600,000 people have been tested so far, according to the figures. He also said 1,822 patients had recovered in the past 24 hours, bringing that number to 10,453. Also Saturday, the interior ministry extended for 15 days a ban on entering and leaving 31 provinces by land, air or sea. These provinces, including Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, are on a weekend lockdown to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.

The new numbers come just days after Turkey sought to position itself as a global savior during the pandemic by sending medical equipment to Italy and Spain, detection kits for Palestinians and even medicines to Armenia, as Breitbart News reported.

In recent weeks, Turkey has also supplied masks, hazmat suits and hydroalcoholic gel to Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

“President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has always wanted to position Turkey as a ‘humanitarian power’, quick to rescue those in need, whether they are oppressed Muslim minorities or countries hit by natural disasters,” Jana Jabbour, a Turkish diplomacy expert at Sciences Po university in Paris told AFP.

It is also an opportunity to turn the tables for Erdogan, who professes nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire, infamously described as “the sick man of Europe” by Western powers before its collapse at the end of World War I.

“It is a question of showing that Turkey is a strong power which has the means to offer aid to European states, now themselves ‘sick’, both in the literal and figurative senses,” Jabbour said.

To cultivate this notion of Turkish supremacy, each delivery to Europe is carefully staged, from the plane’s take-off broadcast live on television to the beneficiaries’ warm thanks spread across the newspapers.

Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin was quick to point out “Turkey is the first country in NATO to send help to Spain and Italy,” who are also members of the US-led military alliance.