A centenarian man in India, who was just four years old during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, has survived COVID-19. He recovered much earlier than his son, who is in his 70s, at a dedicated coronavirus facility in the national capital, doctors said on Sunday.
According to the doctors, the 106-year-old patient was discharged from the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH) recently after recovering, where his wife, son and another family member also recuperated after contracting the novel coronavirus infection.
"We think that he is the first patient in the national capital who underwent treatment for COVID-19 and also went through the dreaded Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, which like COVID-19 had also ravaged the world. Interestingly, he didn't just recover from COVID-19, he recovered faster than his son," a senior doctor at the hospital said.
Medical staff at the hospital were amazed to see the recovery of the centenarian patient from the coronavirus, even though he was highly vulnerable to the infection.
"We don't know whether he was affected by the Spanish Flu or not but he was there at that time. We haven't seen much documentation on the situation back then as far as Delhi is concerned, but very few hospitals were there at that time. During the entire treatment process, the 106-year-old patient showed the will power to survive," said a senior doctor, who monitored his situation during treatment.
The doctor also mentioned that technically, the man has now lived through two pandemics.
According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, the 1918-1919 pandemic called the Spanish Flu was particularly virulent, and killed an estimated 40 million people across the globe. The casualty count in India from the Spanish Flu is believed to have totalled nearly one-fifth of all fatalities in the world.
According to Indian Health Ministry, as many as 673,165 COVID-19 cases have been reported in the country and 19,268 people have died due to the infectious virus.
