Fifth doctor from Wuhan hospital dies from Covid-19 after long battle
- Hu Weifeng, a 42-year-old urologist, contracted the virus four months ago and had been in a coma after he suffered a brain haemorrhage
- Whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang, whose death in February prompted an outpouring of grief and anger, had worked at the same hospital
Hu Weifeng, a 42-year-old urologist, died on Tuesday morning after contracting the coronavirus four months ago, state news agency Xinhua reported. Hu is survived by his wife and two sons.
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At least 69 medical staff at the hospital had tested positive for the virus by February 9, according to news site The Paper. This was put down to the medical workers not wearing protective equipment at the early stage of the outbreak, as the virus quickly spread across the city in January.
Hu was infected in the middle of January, but his symptoms were severe and his condition rapidly deteriorated, according to state broadcaster CCTV. In early February, doctors turned to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, a technique that provides life support for patients suffering respiratory and cardiac failure. He was removed from the machine in late March, and in mid-April he had recovered enough for his breathing tube to be removed and he was transferred out of intensive care, where he had been for nearly three months.
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But on April 22, he suffered a brain haemorrhage. He underwent surgery and had been in a coma until he died, according to a senior doctor from the Sino-French New City Branch of Wuhan Tongji Hospital, where Hu was treated.
“We operated to remove the fluid from his brain on Saturday,” said the doctor, who declined to be named since she was not authorised to talk to the media.
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Images of Hu and another doctor, Yi Fan, had appeared in Chinese media after their skin turned black because of liver damage after they were infected with the virus. Yi, from Wuhan Central Hospital’s heart surgery unit, recovered and was discharged last month.
Back in January – before Chinese authorities confirmed that the virus was being transmitted between humans – Hu had warned another doctor at the hospital to avoid gatherings and stop playing team sport. Duan Xin, captain of the hospital football team, told Pear Video website that “Dr Hu said he couldn’t tell me the explicit reason – we’d heard there was an outbreak but we weren’t aware it was so serious [at the time]”.
In February, experts from a China-World Health Organisation joint mission said 3,387 medical workers had been infected by the virus – 90 per cent of them in Hubei, the province where Wuhan is located. More than 4,600 people have died from Covid-19 in China, according to official figures.
