A few months after he was born, Dom was diagnosed with Covid-19 at the Pro-Cardiaco hospital in Rio de Janeiro.
He spent 54 days in the hospital — 32 of them in an induced coma and connected to a ventilator, Dom’s father, Wagner Andrade, told CNN.
“He had some difficulty breathing so the doctors thought it was a bacterial infection,” he said. “But the medication didn’t work and he got worse. Then me and my wife decided to take him to a second hospital and they tested him. It was coronavirus.”
It remains uncertain how Dom contracted coronavirus. He may have been exposed during a visit to a relative’s home, according to Andrade.
“My wife noticed this noise at the end of his breathing,” he said. “We called a few doctors and one of them told us to record a video. After she saw it, she ordered us to take him immediately to the hospital.”
Andrade and his wife, Viviane Monteiro, say it was a “miracle” that Dom recovered.
“First, I felt relieved, and then indescribable happiness,” Andrade said. “We were longing to get him back home for more than 50 days.”
Dom will celebrate his 6-month birthday on June 14 at home with his parents, surrounded virtually by relatives.
Brazil has reported at least 25 Covid-19-related deaths among babies up to 12 months of age, according to data from the country’s ministry of health.
In the last week, Latin America has become the epicenter of the global pandemic. With 465,166 confirmed cases of the virus and 27,878 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data, Brazil is the hardest hit country in the region.
CNN’s Tatiana Arias wrote in Atlanta and Journalist Rodrigo Pedroso reported from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
