Sofia Zago, a four-year-old girl who died of malaria earlier this year, was infected in Trento hospital, experts from the Higher Health Institute (ISS) said Thursday. They ruled out she was infected by a mosquito. The possible mistake that led to the infection was human error in procedures, the experts said.
A September 7 autopsy on Sofia confirmed that she died of complications following a bout of malaria in another northern Italian hospital, in Brescia, on September 5. Sources at Portoguraro near Venice said she had been symptom-free during her spell in the hospital there, the first of her three hospital stays. It is already known that the girl had the same parasite as two Burkina Faso girls who had returned from their home country.
The girl contracted the illness in the Trento hospital where the African family were successfully treated. A Trento probe into Zago's death is looking into possible culpable homicide by persons as yet unidentified. Zago died in hospital in Brescia but she had previously been in hospital in Portogruaro near Venice and then in Trento in relation to diabetes.
In Trento, there were the two other children with malaria who were receiving treatment after their return form Africa.
The girl reportedly returned to the hospital in Trento a second time, when she was diagnosed with pharyngitis and then with malaria.
The investigation is looking at how the disease was contracted - by a contaminated medical instrument or through a mosquito bite - and whether the correct protocols were followed, the sources said.
The girl, the daughter of an Italian couple resident in Trento, had never been to a country where malaria is a problem.
photo: Trento's Santa Chiara Hospital
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