Ankara, May 17 (IANS): Turkey gets ready to accept patients for health tourism from 31 countries as of May 20 as part of easing its COVID-19 measures, according to the country's Health Ministry.

The Turkish Ministry of Health informed governors across the country that entry of foreign patients will be admitted as of May 20 within the scope of health tourism, and informed them about admissions to hospitals, treatment, discharge and isolation rules, semi-official Anadolu Agency reported on Saturday.

Orthopedics and traumatology, general surgery, pediatric surgery, radiation oncology, brain and nerve surgery, organ transplantation, bone marrow transplantation patients and so on will be admitted to Turkey, Xinhua news agency reported.

The countries include UK, Germany, Russia, Iraq, Azerbaijan and so on.

Only coronavirus negative patients will be accepted to the country. They will be subject to PCR test for the virus while entering the country. If the original countries of the patients can conduct PCR tests, they will be asked to take the test within 48 hours before their travel and provide negative the novel coronavirus result documents.