A migrant woman who tested positive to coronavirus has given birth to a baby on board a helicopter as she was flying to Sicily from the small southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the Sicilian regional government said on Tuesday.
The woman was staying at a migrant holding center designed to hold about 100 people, which in recent days has been home to nearly 10 times as many due to a pickup in arrivals.
Since she was positive, health operators decided to transfer her to the Cervello hospital, in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, so that she could give birth in safety. Palermo is a one-hour flight from Lampedusa.
But there was no time. She gave birth on the helicopter as it was flying over the southern coast of Sicily, close to the city of Agrigento, a spokesman for the Sicilian government told Reuters.
Reuters
