First COVID-19 patient dies in Czech Republic

Prague, March 22 (CTK) – The first COVID-19 patient, a man aged 95, hospitalised in the Prague Na Bulovce hospital, died in the Czech Republic today, the server iDnes.cz has said.

The man was hospitalised on March 18 and stayed at the infection clinic. He suffered from a number of health problems, such as chronic heart failure and chronic ischemic heart disease and had a pacemaker.

“The cause of the death was the overall exhaustion of organism in the patient with numerous internal diseases,” the Health Ministry said.

“The news is tremendously sad. Unfortunately, as we watch the development of the disease, we had to reckon with the moment,” Health Minister Adam Vojtech (for ANO) said.

Deputy Health Minister Roman Prymula told Czech Television the man had also suffered from other diseases.

“His organism was exhausted, he was 95. I would say he died along with coronavirus rather than from coronavirus,” Prymula said.

In all, there are over 1,100 proven case of the infection by the novel coronavirus. The first appeared on March 1.

There are over 70 ill in hospitals, but most of them are in home quarantine. There are 19 ill at intensive care units and 11 with lung ventilation.

One patient, now in the General Teaching Hospital in Prague, is on a special Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) device.

Six persons have been cured from the illness, the first recovered from it on March 16.