Coronavirus: Condition of Bangladeshi worker, whose wife gave birth recently, improves in Singapore

A 39-year-old Bangladeshi construction worker infected with coronavirus has been transferred to the general ward from the intensive care unit of a hospital in Singapore.

He is Singapore's 42nd Covid-19 patient and was in the ICU of Changi General Hospital (CGH) for the last two months.

While he was unconscious at the hospital, his wife came back home and gave birth to a baby boy on March 30.

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Migrant Workers' Centre (MWC), a non-government organisation, said in a Facebook post today that the man has been taken off the ventilator and is no longer sedated, reports The Straits Times.

The MWC, in its post, said that it has tracked the man's case closely and grown close to both the worker's family and his employer.

"He is able to breathe on his own and will require speech therapy moving forward as part of his recovery process," MWC said.

The man had first reported symptoms on February 1 and was kept at Changi General Hospital (CGH) on February 7. He tested positive the next day.

Along with four other Bangladeshi men, he was among the first foreign workers in Singapore to test positive for the coronavirus. They were linked to a cluster in Seletar Aerospace Heights where they were working to expand aerospace manufacturer Bombardier Aviation's facilities.

By March 7, the other four workers had all recovered and been discharged.

But the man has spent the second-longest period of time in the hospital aside from a 64-year-old Singaporean man who was hospitalised one day earlier.

Since his admission, he had remained in critical condition in the intensive care unit (ICU) due to complications from Covid-19.

He remained in the ICU even after he was cleared of the virus and was transferred out of CGH to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases in late March.

The Bangladesh High Commission had earlier said that the worker suffered from respiratory and kidney problems, as well as pneumonia, before he was infected with the virus.

MWC said, "We have spoken with the family and the employer regarding this very encouraging and happy development and can report that all concerned are overjoyed."