Coronavirus: Prada donates six intensive care units to hospitals in Milan following increase in fatalities

Death toll in Italy increased by nearly 400 in just 24 hours

Prada has become the latest luxury fashion label to join the fight against the coronavirus outbreak.

On Monday, the Italian fashion house announced in a statement that the company’s co-CEOs Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada, and chairman Carlo Mazzi had personally donated six intensive care and resuscitation units to three hospitals in Milan.

The hospitals included San Raffaele, Sacco and Vittore Buzzi – the latter of which is a children's hospital.

The donation follows the news that the coronavirus death toll in Italy increased by nearly 400 in 24 hours, from 1,441 to 1,809.

According to officials, the total number of infections in the country, which is in lockdown, has also gone up, to 24,747, from 21,157.

Lombardy, the heavily populated area around the financial capital Milan, has been Italy‘s worst-affected region, with 966 deaths and 11,685 confirmed cases.

Over the past week, a number of major fashion brands have donated millions to help treat those affected and help prevent the spread of the virus.

On Monday, Louis Vuitton’s parent company, LVMH, pledged to use its perfume factories to manufacture hand sanitiser in order to reduce the risk of a shortage in France amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The company stated that the gel “will be delivered free of charge to the French health authorities” and as a “priority” to the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, a university hospital trust.

Similarly, Giorgio Armani donated €1.25m (£1.1m) to hospitals in Italy, including three hospitals in Milan and the Spallanzani hospital in Rome.

The donation also included money for the Civil Protection Agency, a national body in Italy that deals with emergency situations.

Donatella Versace and her daughter, Allegra Versace Beck, also donated €200,000 (£182,000) to the intensive care unit of Milan’s San Raffaele hospital.

“Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this disease and to all the doctors and medical staff who have been working heroically non-stop in the past weeks in the effort to take care of our loved ones,” the Italian mother-daughter duo said in a statement.

“This is when we, as a society, need to stand together and care for one another.”

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