A 57-year-old doctor who tested positive for coronavirus and who was working in a hospital in the town of Codogno has died.
Marcello Natali had been hospitalised in Cremona before being transferred to Milan after developing double pneumonia.
In one of the last interviews he gave before he was tested for COVID-19, he told Euronews that he had had to work without gloves: "They have run out," he said.
He also said that in Codogno and a nearby town, Casale, 14 out of 35 doctors were in quarantine or hospitalised as of February 28.
"We weren't prepared for coronavirus: as doctors of the post antibiotic era, we grew up thinking that a pill against everything was enough," he said.
Natali's death was confirmed by a representative of the Italian Federation of General Practitioners, who said that he too was suffering from double pneumonia because of the coronavirus.
Many European countries have struggled to find enough gloves, medical masks and items such as hand sanitiser in stories as demand is intensified by panic buying. »