ANKARA (Reuters) – One town and four villages in Turkey’s Black Sea province of Rize have been quarantined over the coronavirus outbreak, the local mayor said on Friday, in the first case of a lockdown in the country since the beginning of the outbreak two weeks ago.
Alaettin Serdar, the mayor of the Kandirli town, said in an interview with state broadcaster TRT Haber the move was a precautionary measure to prevent the further spread of illness after a patient in the town died of the virus on Thursday.
The death toll in Turkey due to the coronavirus jumped by 16 to 75 on Thursday, while the number of confirmed cases surged to a total of 3,629 since the first case was reported on March 11.
(Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)
