Turkey's health minister compared Istanbul to Wuhan, where the new coronavirus first emerged

Turkey's health minister has compared Istanbul to Wuhan the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus first emerged as the epicenter of infections in an interview.

Turkey's Wuhan was Istanbul, minister Fahrettin Koca told a columnist from pro-government Sabah newspaper in an interview published Friday.

Koca said the spread of COVID-19 in Istanbul was brought under control through contact tracing executed by a team of experts. They followed trails like medical detectives, he said and argued it would have been difficult to contain the virus otherwise.

The latest official figures show 2,491 people have died and 101,790 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed. The highest number of cases is in Istanbul, the health minister has said.

The country ranks seventh in the world in the number of confirmed infections, surpassing Iran and China, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Experts say the true toll of the pandemic around the world is much higher than the Johns Hopkins tally, due in part to limited testing and difficulties in counting the dead in the midst of a crisis. Nearly 800,000 people have been tested for COVID-19 in Turkey, which has a population of 83 million.