COVID Fears Mum Kills Self After Son Returns From UK

Story By:  Sofija DizdarevikSub-EditorAlex Cope, Agency:  Newsflash

A 65-year-old woman who wrongly thought she had contracted coronavirus from her son after he returned to Bulgaria from England has taken her own life.

The woman has been named in reports as Vanya M. from the village of Gorna Breznitsa in Kresna Municipality in western Bulgaria’s Blagoevgrad Province and had reportedly been suffering from asthma-related lung problems for 20 years.

Her son, who has not been named, had returned to Bulgaria in mid-March from England where he works to support his two children.

Vanya M. reportedly panicked believing her son, who strictly observed a 14-day quarantine upon his return to Bulgaria, had infected her with COVID-19.

The mother is said to have been particularly anxious about the virus after losing her daughter-in-law to swine flu.

She called a doctor who examined her and told her she did not have the virus before reportedly going to the Kresna Emergency ward twice, eventually being given an appointment at the pulmonary unit at Blagoevgrad Hospital for a checkup.

The Mayor of the village Stoyan Yorgov said that he had planned to drop Vanya M. at a bus stop but as traffic circulation has been limited because of the COVID-19 pandemic he could not do so.

The woman, who has packed her bags for a hospital stay, then reportedly called an ambulance to take her to the hospital but she was refused for procedural reasons.

She is said to have drunk a coffee with her son before walking outside and her son later found her hanging in a shed.

Mayor Yorgov said: “She suggested that her son had infected her, but he wasn’t ill.

“He has nothing, the man strictly observed the 14-day quarantine and now he is already going out”.

The family were reportedly poor, often relying on social benefits and the municipality to grant them support.

According to the latest statistics from the Johns Hopkins University, there have been 477 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Bulgaria with 30 deaths.

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