Woman, 101 and man, 98, beat Covid-19

 

FINDING out that a treasured elderly relative has tested positive for Covid-19 is devastating and heartbreaking, since this is the most vulnerable and at-risk slice of the population – but hope is out there, as two patients at either end of the country have proven.

A woman from the Pyrénéen town of Biescas (Huesca province, Aragón) who is thought to have caught the virus during a family funeral at the beginning of March, has just been discharged after two weeks in hospital – despite her loved ones having been preparing for the worst.

After all, at the age of 101, they did not expect her to recover.

She has now tested negative and is fully fit again after her fortnight at Huesca city's San Jorge hospital, and is back home in Biescas – where she was the first resident to catch the virus, and where she lives with her daughter.

Her recovery has 'given a great deal of hope and encouragement' to her family to 'keep on fighting', says Biescas' mayoress Nuria Pargada, who says all the relatives, friends and neighbours who were frightened they were going to lose her are 'deeply grateful' to all the healthcare staff and everyone else who supported them through their traumatic ordeal.

Biescas has ended up with over 30 cases of Coronavirus, of whom 20 or so are in Huesca's San Jorge hospital.

Three more, all regulars at the pensioners' drop-in centre, have died, and the town hall declared yesterday (Monday, March 30) as an official day of mourning.

Over 900 kilometres, or nine hours by car, away from the 101-year-old survivor, Granada-born Antonio Magdaleno Martínez, 98, has just spent a fortnight at Sevilla's Virgen del Rocío hospital being treated for Covid-19.

Given his advanced age, Antonio was not expected to survive either – but has now been discharged and is back at the Fundomar nursing home in Sevilla where he lives.

As fit as a fiddle – being 98 aside – Antonio was greeted with an outpouring of delight and affection by staff and other residents, and a chorus of whoops and cheers.

Residents in Spain in their late 90s and early 100s are far more common than elsewhere in the world, even the western world – anecdotal evidence shows that almost every small to medium-sized town has at least two or three centenarians, and that the national total could run into nearly five figures.

With one of the longest life expectancies on earth, Spain was, until just over two years ago, home to the oldest man and the oldest woman in Europe – the latter being the third-oldest woman and the former the oldest man on earth.

Francisco Núñez Olivera, from Extremadura, was 113 and just over six weeks when he passed away in late January 2018, having never been ill in his life besides having a kidney removed when he was 90 and a cataract operation at 98.

This is not the only time Spain has been home to the oldest man on earth – Joan Riudavets Moll turned 114 on December 15, 2003 and passed away just under three months later at his home in Es Migjorn Gran, Menorca.

He was among the last of Spain's surviving residents born in the 19^th century.

Given that women live longer than men on average, Spain has not yet been home to the world's oldest female, but Ana María Vela Rubio became the third-oldest in December 2017 after the death of Jamaica's Violet Brown, who was 117-and-a-half.

Ana Vela was also the oldest woman in Europe at the same time as Francisco Núñez was the world's longest-living man, and was aged 116 years and 47 days when she passed away in the retirement home in Terrassa (Barcelona province) where she lived.

At the time of her death, her sole surviving child – a daughter, also called Ana – was aged 90.

 

Photograph: Intensive care worker, by Andalucía regional government (Junta de Andalucía)