A surgeon who died of Covid was double-vaccinated, it has been revealed.
Tragic Dr Irfan Halim, 45, died in hospital in London last Sunday following a brave nine-week battle with the virus.
His grieving widow Saila said: “My husband worked away from London and I’m not sure which vaccine he received but he was double vaccinated and always wore full PPE when he was on the wards.
“He never said anything about getting the booster and I don’t think he got one.
“It’s a double tragedy for the family and we are in too much pain to consider anything else.”
His death came two months after he had taken up work on the Covid intensive care unit wards at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire.
Colleagues have described the surgeon as a medical powerhouse like ‘10 men in one body’ after treating 250,000 patients throughout his career.
He was isolated from his family for four months at the height of the pandemic last spring while treating Covid patients on the front lines.
Mrs Halim revealed she spared her husband the additional grief that his father Kamal, 75, also a doctor, died in another London hospital from Covid on September 24.
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He is believed to have contracted the virus here before collapsing during a shift on September 10.
After initially being treated at the Swindon hospital, he was transferred to the Royal Brompton on September 26.
Mrs Halim, 44, recalled her husband’s last day, when he was surrounded at his bedside by her and their four children; Zara, 13, Adam, 12, Zain, 11, and Alisa, five. Dr Halim’s brother, sister and mother were also with him.
She said: “I held him in my arms and whispered prayers and love. We have lost our hero.
“He was an incredible husband, father and son. He was a best friend to the whole family.
“We all feel empty and I’m not coping. He was my life, my world, my everything. Nothing could have prepared us for this.
"I was convinced that our love would pull him through. And even when he was in hospital, he was being his happy, loving self."
Mrs Halim also insisted she never tried to stop her husband from risking the dangers of Covid.
She added: “I never tried to stop him from working with Covid patients because that was his life; caring for people.”
