Our Bureau New York
An American doctor, Dr Rajendera Kapila (81) has died of Covid-19 after travelling to India to care for family members. He had planned to return to the US in mid-April but tested positive for Covid-19 on 8 April before he was admitted to Delhi’s Shanti Mukund Hospital, where he died 20 days later.
His university, the New Jersey’s Rutgers University has confirmed that the doctor had died in a Delhi hospital on 28 April after several weeks of treatment for Covid-related complications.
Hindustan Times newspaper had quoted his widow sating that the couple travelled together to India in the last week of March.
“It is ironic that we came to India for two weeks and he contracted it here” said his widow Dr Saxena-Kapila, who specialises in microbiology.
The newspaper quoted Dr Saxena-Kapila as saying they had both been fully vaccinated with two Pfizer–BioNTech shots, though this was not immediately confirmed by Kapila’s university.
Rutgers University’s chair of the department of medicine Dr Marc Klapholz sent a statement via email to colleagues, which was later also shared online, saying Dr Kapila had been a foundational pillar of the New Jersey Medical School for 50 years.
India is currently undergoing a devastating second wave of coronavirus, and has seen a total of more than 21 million cases and more than 230,000 deaths due to Covid since the pandemic began.
