Italian had tested corona negative before death: Hospital

The patient was among 14 Italian tourists who were admitted to the hospital as suspected cases of COVID-19, with the other 13 subsequently being discharged after testing negative for the virus. (Representational Image)

A day after a 78-year-old Italian woman, who had tested positive for coronavirus last died at Medanta – The Medicity in Gurgaon, Dr Sushila Kataria, who leads the hospital’s COVID response team, said: “The immediate cause of her death was not coronavirus. It was related to leaky gut syndrome, wherein bacteria and fungi translocated into the blood, and she eventually died of septicaemia, but the whole process was related to coronavirus, though she had become COVID negative.”

“There are two ways of looking at it. One is what is the immediate cause — immediate cause is not COVID, but why did the immediate cause happen? Had she been up and about, the translocation of bacteria would not have happened. Technically this has been classified as a non-COVID death, but indirectly it could be a result of that,” she said.

The patient, doctors said, had been in the ICU for 24 days prior to her death. She was supposed to be transported back to Italy by air ambulance on Saturday, after she tested negative for coronavirus twice, but died at 11.55 am on Saturday. She was among 14 Italian tourists who were admitted to the hospital as suspected cases of COVID-19, with the other 13 subsequently being discharged after testing negative for the virus.