ROME, March 11. /TASS/. Roberto Stella, head of Medics Union of Varese province, a therapist from Lombardy, has become the first victim of the coronavirus among medical community, ANSA news agency reported Wednesday.
According to the report, the man was 67 years old. He was hospitalized in Como with breathing difficulties due to coronavirus infection.
According to the latest data, the number of lethal cases in Italy has reached 631. Notably, the deceased were mostly seniors who suffered from other illnesses that got exacerbated by the coronavirus. With slightly more than 10,000 infection cases and 1,000 recovered patients, coronavirus lethality ratio in Italy is much higher than in other countries.
Depending on the region, 5% to 10% of the infected require intensive therapy and artificial lung ventilation. Lombardy, which accounts for more than half of all infected, runs out of resuscitation rooms. The medical staff works 16 hours a day. Other regions, especially the southern ones, fear that, should they face a similar influx of the infected, the medical system will fail.
The Chinese authorities registered an outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the city of Wuhan. Cases of novel coronavirus were confirmed in 120 countries and territories, including Russia. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Outside of China, most cases of the new coronavirus were reported in South Korea, Iran and Italy.
In China, over 3,150 people died, nearly 61,570 people recovered, and the number of cases reached 80,780. Over 121,000 coronavirus cases and more than 4,370 deaths were confirmed in the world so far.