A student discovered she was infected with coronavirus in London after attending a private medical consultation.
Paola Passalacqua, 32, is an MA Public Relations student at UAL. She told Birmingham Eastside: “I was treated twice by phone and prescribed paracetamol and ibuprofen because according to the symptoms I got, the doctors told me it was influenza or very strong cold”
She believed the medicines she was prescribed were not working, so she resorted to private healthcare. The student added “When I went to the private doctors, they told me nothing new. Just that I had a strong cold and should take antibiotics.”
After feeling better, she returned to her hometown, the city of Santiago, the capital and largest city of Chile, where she was diagnosed with coronavirus.
The masters student said “I was tested the next day after arriving in Chile, after 48 hours I got positive results”
“It was all online, I had no relationship with any doctor so I could talk about it.”
“They called me the next day to confirm my data and those of my family and then I was also called from the health ministry to added me in the recovered coronavirus people list”
Chile is one of the Latin American countries with the largest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19. However, in comparison with European countries has 13,331 infected cases, 189 death and 7,024 recovered cases.
The Chilean student got all coronavirus symptoms but there was one symptom that she didn’t and led her to think it was the reason why the doctors didn’t discover, it was coronavirus.
Passalacqua said “I had all coronavirus symptoms but I never had dry cough, trouble breathing or lung pain, I think that was the reason why the doctors didn’t test me from coronavirus and thought I had strong cold”
The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has indicated that people who visited their doctor with symptoms in February may not have been picked up as having coronavirus.
Hancock said that because February is a month which seasonal flu is very common, cases of coronavirus had been undetected.
Paola was ill for almost 2 months, before she was officially discharged by her doctor in Chile.
“Last Friday I was checked by my doctor. He says I’m not supposed to be infected anymore and I’m already immune”
Now she is hoping to donate blood to scientists who are carrying out future research into the coronavirus.
