ANKARA, April 15. /TASS/. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Turkey has increased by over 4,200 in the past day and surpassed 69,000, the country's health minister Fahrettin Koca.

"In the past 24 hours, 34,090 tests were administered, and 4,281 new coronavirus cases were confirmed," Koca said. "A total of 115 people died in the past day, so now the death toll reached 1,518, and the number of confirmed cases reached 69,392," he added. The minister noted that 5,674 people recovered.

The first coronavirus case in Turkey was confirmed on March 10.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 2,000,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 126,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 485,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.