Dr Jitendra Nath Pande, aged 79 years, had tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in this week, died at his residence on Saturday. He was a renowned pulmonologist and former head of the department of medicine at AIIMS, Delhi.

AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria said that on Tuesday, Dr Pande and his wife were tested positive with mild symptoms and decided to stay in home isolation. Dr. Pande’s wife was shifted to AIIMS on Saturday. They were following up regularly and said that he was improving. However, on Friday after going to bed in the night, he passed away in his sleep, maybe due to an acute cardiac event as he had co-morbid conditions.

Guleria said that Dr. Pande’s death is a great loss to medical fraternity. Knowledge and humility can co-existed in Dr Pande. He was an admirable human being and it is definitely a great loss to the medical community. AIIMS family will miss him a lot as he had joined AIIMS as an MBBS student and also retired as the head of the department of medicine.

Pande, had authored hundreds of papers on respiratory medicine and had treated several famous personalities, which also includes the President of India. He was practicing at Sitaram Bharatia Research Institute after his retirement from AIIMS.

Dr Anoop Misra, chairman, Fortis C-Doc, also said Dr. Pande was a great teacher, pulmonologist, biostatistician and a great diagnostician.

Source: ET Healthworld