Feb. 5 (UPI) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Saturday that he and his wife, Emine Erdogan, have tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
“Today, the result of our COVID-19 test, which I had with my wife after mild symptoms, was positive,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 67, tweeted. “Thankfully, we have a mild illness, which we learned to be an Omicron variant. We are on our mission. We will continue our work at home. We look forward to your prayers.”
The Omicron strain became the dominant strain globally last month.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned home Tuesday from a trip to Ukraine to talk with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about ongoing tensions with Russia, CNN reported.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan told CNN in an interview last year he had his third dose of COVID-19 vaccine in June.
The country hit a new record Tuesday of more than 100,000 new cases, Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center data show.
On Friday, there were 111,157 new COVID-19 cases and 248 new deaths reported.
Since the pandemic began, Turkey has had over 12 million cases and over 88,300 deaths.