Omicron subvariant BA.5 became the dominant strain in Turkey, data shows

Omicron subvariant BA.5 became the dominant strain in Turkey, data shows
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The Ministry of Health did not announce the data publicly but shared it with a global science initiative

The peculiar situation was highlighted by Guclu Yaman, a member of the COVID-19 workgroup of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB). Referring to data from GISAID, a global initiative to track epidemics and pandemics, Yaman said, “Turkey shared the variant data for the last four weeks. BA.5 of the Omicron family continued to increase and became the dominant strain. 83 percent of the 303 samples taken between June 27 and July 11 came back as BA.5."

The Turkish Medical Association workgroup member previously highlighted that European countries also showed a similar pattern in which the BA.5 subvariant replaces the BA.2 as the dominant strain. “A similar process begins in Turkey in the second half of May, with the last data being submitted on June 13,” he said.

On June 28, roughly during the same period when the BA.5 became the dominant strain in Turkey, Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca said “rest assured, the bad days are over.”