Milan: Italian nurse Cristina Settembrese spends her days on the frontline caring for COVID-19 patients, the illness caused by the new coronavirus which is killing tens of thousands of people across the world.
Settembrese has been a nurse since she was 18-and-a-half and two months ago the infectious disease ward where she works at San Paolo Hospital in Milan started treating only COVID-19 patients.
The 54-year-old said that the illness had forced her and much other staff to "reinvent" themselves as they learnt how to operate machines she likened to "helmets" to help patients battle the virus.
She said: "We health care personnel reinvented ourselves, all of us a little bit, because working in the infective disease ward I had never seen a helmet, nor a Niv mask, nor did I know how to check the monitors so we worked and when at home we had to study these machines."
To try and stop the spread of the illness strict measures have been put in place in Italy.
Read more: Sky-rocketing deaths: Cemeteries full, Italian Army transports coffins
The country was placed in lockdown with people stopped from leaving their homes except for essential travel and to buy food. This also included not being allowed to visit loved ones who were in the hospital fighting the virus.
Two days after Italy's first confirmed coronavirus case, in late February, Settembrese sent away from her 24-year-old daughter, Rebecca, from their home in the Milan suburb of Basiglio to live with her sister for fear she might inadvertently spread infection when she returns from work.
Walking Pepe, her dog, is her only moment of socialization at a safe distance with other dog owners she says.
But Settembrese said she had a new family, her patients and her colleagues, who have forged bonds in these last fraught weeks.
She said: "There are patients that touch your soul because they are there alone, they don't have relatives, they live their disease alone and sometimes they live their death alone, unfortunately, so we feel a little bit like we are their family."
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks.
For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
Also read: Italian death toll overtakes China's as virus spreads
(With inputs from AP)
