The child traveled in a special isolation stretcher with her mother, who was also positive for the virus, assisted by a medical bio-containment team from the Air Force.
A few minutes ago, a C-130J of the Italian Air Force landed on the Brescia Montichiari airport carrying a baby girl of just six months, positive for Covid and in need of an urgent bone marrow transplant.
The little patient traveled, together with her mother, also positive, inside a special transportable aviation isolation stretcher - in technical jargon ATI (Aircraft Transport Isolator) - assisted by a specialized team of bio-containment of the Air Force composed by doctors and nurses of the Infirmary of Pratica di Mare, the national hub of the Armed Force in the coordination and management of this kind of transport.
The Prefecture of Lecce requested emergency air transport, which was followed - after coordination with the Italian Patient Evacuation Coordination Cell (ITAPECC) of the Operational Command of Vertice Interforze (Covi), which provides advice on patient transportability in this kind of missions - the order to take off from the Operations Room of the Aerospace Operations Command of Poggio Renatico to one of the crews of the 46th Air Brigade ready to take off for this type of intervention.
The aircraft, which departed from the permanent base in Pisa, first made a stopover in Pratica di Mare to embark the stretcher and the medical team, and then went to the military airport of Lecce Galatina - home of the flight school of the 61st Wing - whose personnel was activated in a very short time to guarantee essential airport services, even if on a day that is not normal for the department. Once the stretcher had been loaded, the aircraft left for Montichiari, for the subsequent transfer by ambulance to the Brescia hospital.
Through its Flight Departments, the Air Force provides vehicles and crews ready to take off at any time and able to operate even in complex weather conditions to ensure the urgent transport of people in imminent danger of life or as happened today in waiting for transplantation, but also for the transport of organs and medical teams. Hundreds of flight hours are carried out each year for this type of intervention by the aircraft of the 31st Wing of Ciampino, the 14th Wing of Pratica di Mare and the 46th Air Brigade of Pisa. Air transport in bio-containment is, in particular, one of the peculiar capabilities made available by the Air Force for the Covid emergency, in which the Armed Force has operated with a wide range of assets depending on the specific need (KC-767A, C-130J and C-27J transport aircraft and HH101 helicopters) for the safe transfer of hundreds of positive patients in need of emergency medical transport because they are in imminent danger of life.