113-year-old woman becomes oldest person in the world to beat coronavirus
A 113-year-old woman, the oldest person living in Spain, has now become the oldest reported survivor of the coronavirus.
Maria Branyas, a mother-of-three, survived COVID-19 whilst residing in the Santa Maria del Tura care home in the city of Olot, eastern Spain.
Originally born in San Fransisco on March 4, 1907, Branyas lived through the Spanish flu pandemic that affected the world in 1918 and 1919, killing an estimated 50 million people.
Maria is considered the oldest person in Spain by the Gerontology Research Group, a global group of researchers in various fields which verifies and tracks supercentenarians – people who have reached the age of 110.
While other people over the age of 100 have survived the coronavirus, Branyas is likely the only supercentenarian to have done so.
17 people at the nursing home have died from virus, and while measures were put in place to make sure Branyas doesn’t contract it, she was diagnosed positive in April.
She was kept in her room in total isolation as she fought the disease before finally testing negative.
Anyone over the age of 70 is considered to be at high risk from contracting coronavirus making Branyas’ recovery even more remarkable.
According to her daughter Rosa Moret, Branyas said the pandemic is very sad, but she is not aware where it comes from or how it reached Spain.
Ms Moret told reporters that her mother is a strong and optimistic person who dealt with a urine infection whilst infected, but the virus itself was symptomless.
It was revealed in April that nearly half of the deaths in Europe resulting from the coronavirus were in care homes.