YAKARTA (Reuters) – Photographs of a grieving wife leaning over the coffin of her late husband, an Indonesian physician, have caught attention to the highest number of people among fitness personnel in Southeast Asia.
The photographs, taken at Wahidin Sudirohusodo Hospital in Makassar, southern Sulawesi, on Thursday morning and shared with Reuters through the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI), circulated widely on social media.
They show a woman, whose face is barely visible, dressed in a mixture of dangerous pink materials, gloves and a turquoise mask, while laying her head on a white coffin.
The Indonesian Medical Association said the woman’s husband, Dr. Titus Taba, who ran the IDI in West Papua, was the 94th Indonesian physician to die of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
Halik Malik, the association’s spokesperson, said the limited number of protective equipment, isolation rooms and poor patient evaluation had led to a maximum mortality rate among doctors.
“The number of doctors dying in Indonesia remains higher or even expanding in the last two months,” he said.
Indonesia is dealing with one of the worst virus outbreaks in the region. In India, a country with more than 3 times the population and more than 3 million cases, nearly two hundred doctors died by COVID-19, the Indian Medical Association told locals. media in early August.
Indonesia reported its largest buildup of coronavirus infections on Thursday, with 2,719 new cases.
162,884 cases of coronavirus and 7064 deaths, the number of deaths in Southeast Asia.
Reporting through Stanley Widianto: Writing through Kate Lamb; Edited through Alexandra Hudson
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