A 102-year-old Italian woman has recovered from coronavirus after spending 20 days in the hospital.
Italica Grondona, of Genoa, was first admitted to the hospital in early March for “mild heart failure,” according to a report published Friday by CNN.
A 102-year-old woman has recovered from coronavirus in the northern Italian city of Genoa after spending more than 20 days in hospital, doctors who treated her and her nephew told CNN https://t.co/u1CpIe3cSj
— CNN (@CNN) March 28, 2020
“She only had some mild coronavirus symptoms, so we tested her and she was positive, but we did very little, she recovered on her own,” her doctor Vera Sicbaldi, who treated Grondona at the San Martino hospital in Genoa, told the outlet.
The average age of those experiencing death after testing positive for COVID-19 is 78 years old in Italy, CNN reported.
“Italica represents a hope for all the elderly facing this pandemic,” the doctor added.
Doctors were so impressed with Grondona’s recovery they decided to further study her case. Grondona could be one of the few people left who survived the 1918 Spanish Flu.
“We got serological samples, she is the first patient we know that might have gone through the ‘Spanish flu’ since she was born in 1917,” Sicbaldi explained.
Grondona was released from the hospital in Genoa on March 26 and is now in home care.
“I don’t know what her secret is, but I know she is a free and independent woman,” Grondona’s nephew, Renato Villa Grondona, told CNN.