A woman living in Spain is believed to have become the world's oldest survivor of coronavirus after beating the disease at the age of 113.
Maria Branyas was born in San Francisco but moved to Spain, where she has become the country's oldest citizen.
The mother-of-three managed to overcome Covid-19 while at home in the Santa Maria del Tura care facility in the city of Olot, which is in the eastern Spanish province of Girona in the Catalonia region.
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The Gerontology Research Group, a global group of researchers who verify and track supercentenarians, claim Branyas is the oldest person in the world who has beat the virus.
She was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus back in April, when she was isolated in her room at the care home to fight the disease, before finally testing negative.
Branyas reportedly said she finds the pandemic very sad, but is not aware where it comes from or how it came to arrive in Spain, where 26,920 people have died from the virus to date.
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Thanking the care home staff for their help and support, she now says her health is fine, adding that she suffers small pains like everybody else.
Her daughter Rosa Moret told reporters that Branyas is a strong and positive person. She added that her mother suffered a urine infection while infected with Covid-19, but said the virus itself was symptomless.
Moret said Branyas had grown bored of being isolated in her room, having received her last visitor on her birthday on 4 March, before visits were prohibited.
Moret, who set up a Twitter account for her mum, said of Branyas: "Now she is fine, she is willing to talk, to explain, to think, she is herself again."
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Branyas was born on 4 March 1907 in San Francisco - her father a journalist from Pamplona, in the northern Spanish region of Navarra, who had moved to the United States for work, after spending some time in Mexico.
Branyas later lived in the Spanish cities of Barcelona, Banyoles, Girona, Calonge i Sant Antoni and Palol de Revardit, all in Catalonia.
She then moved to the care home where she currently resides, where she has lived for two decades.
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Branyas credits 'having good health' as the key for a long life, explaining how she never smoked.
After marrying doctor Joan Moret in 1931 and having three children, Branyas is now grandmother to 11 (including one grandchild who is 70!) and great-grandmother to 13 - all of whom are looking forward to being able to visit her again.
Branyas isn't the only centenarian to have survived coronavirus. Other people include 107-year-old Dutch woman Cornelia Ras, 104-year-old American man Bill Lapschies and 103-year-old Zhang Guangfen from Wuhan in China, where the virus originated.
Featured Image Credit: NewsflashTopics: World News, News, Coronavirus, Spain