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HEALTH-VIRUS-ITALY
One hundred Italian doctors have died of virus: medics
ROME, April 9, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – One hundred Italian doctors have died
of the novel coronavirus since the pandemic reached the Mediterranean
country in February, Italy’s FNOMCeO health association said on
Thursday.
“The number of doctors who have died because of COVID-19 is 100 —
perhaps even 101 at the moment, unfortunately,” a FNOMCeO spokesman
told AFP.
The toll includes retired doctors the government began calling in a
month ago to help fight a coronavirus that has officially claimed a
world-topping 17,669 lives in Italy.
Italian media reports estimate that 30 nurses and nursing assistance
have also died of COVID-19.
“We can longer allow our doctors, our health workers, to be sent to
fight without any protection against the virus,” FNOMCeO president
Filippo Anelli said on the association’s website.
“It is an unfair fight.”
Rome’s ISS public health institute estimates that 10 percent of those
infected with the novel coronavirus in Italy work in health care.
BSS/AFP/MRU/1943hrs