ROME - Italian health professionals have been officially nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for their commitment in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. It is the first time that an entire nation’s health personnel have received such a nomination. 

  The Nobel committee wrote, “the Italian health personnel were the first in the western world to have to face such a grave health emergency, in which they resorted to the possible remedies of combat medicine, fighting in the trenches to save lives, and often losing their own.”

  The proposal was launched by the Gorbachev Foundation in Piacenza, who wanted to see recognised the incessant effort, for over a year, of “all the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, physiotherapists, biologists, technicians and soldiers who, in often dramatic and prohibitive situations, faced the Covid-19 emergency with extraordinary self-sacrifice, many sacrificing their own life to save the lives of others, and to contain the spread of the pandemic.”

  The candidature was officially undersigned by Lisa Clark, the co-president of the International Peace Bureau, who, living in Tuscany, volunteered throughout the pandemic for the Red Cross in Bagno a Ripoli.

  Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Rai 1, “they are men and women of our national health service, I don’t like to use the word ‘heroes’. They are people that did their job from morning to evening without ever sparing themselves, and they continue to do so.  All of them, in such a complicated year as this, have understood how important it is to have such a good health service.”

  So far 340 doctors and 80 nurses have died from Covid-19 in Italy,

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