Claims on Accuracy of Covid-19 Death Toll on Parliamentary Agenda

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) İzmir MP Serpil Kemalbay has submitted a parliamentary question to the Ministry of Health about the Turkish Medical Association's (TTB) claim that Turkey doesn't report deaths according to codes suggested by WHO.

Citing the TTB's statement dated April 10, Kemalbay said that "there was no parallel between the daily number of new cases and deaths."

The TTB had said computed tomography images and clinical findings of some patients showed that they were infected with Covid-19, although they tested negative.

WHO uses U07.1 code for patients whose PCR tests were positive and U07.2 is for those who had the disease but died without a positive test. The TTB physicians reported that death causes of patients without a positive PCR test were recorded as "viral pneumonia," "infectious disease" or "natural causes." This

According to Turkey's Death Reporting System, U07.1 code is for "MERS-CoV disease" and U07.2 is for "avian influenza infection," the statement also noted.

As a result of the ministry's reporting, the official death toll is lower than actual numbers, Kemalbay said and asked the Ministry of Health that why don't they use the codes suggested by WHO.

She also asked whether the ministry will use the WHO's codes and work to correctly report the deaths since February, applying the verbal autopsy method. (AS/VK)