Samaritan's Purse airlifts mobile field hospital to Italy to combat coronavirus

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Samaritan's Purse, a Christian charity organization, airlifted a 68-bed emergency field hospital to Cremona, Italy, on Tuesday, in an effort to help the county fight the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The group's cargo plane was carrying 20 tons of medical equipment, a specialized respiratory care unit and 32 disaster response specialists. The hospital will be set up by Friday, about 50 miles outside Milan.

In total, 60 people from the charity will be working to provide assistance once they all arrive on-site.

Samaritan's Purse, which is led by Fraklin Graham, posted a message about the effort on their website, along with photos detailing their work.

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The Emergency Field Hospital has a unique layout with specialized respiratory equipment to provide the highest level of care to patients who are suffering from the virus.

The Italian Air Force and Lombardy Region Civil Protection volunteers worked alongside Samaritan's Purse to set up the Emergency Field Hospital in Cremona, Italy.

Disaster response specialists set up the Samaritan's Purse Emergency Field Hospital in Cremona, about 50 miles outside of Milan, to help care for an overflow of COVID-19 patients in northern Italy.

"Samaritan's Purse is the first international organization to provide emergency medical relief to families impacted by the deadly COVID-19 outbreak in northern Italy," the statement read.

"The international Christian relief organization deployed its Emergency Field Hospital and more than 60 disaster response specialists -- including respiratory therapists, doctors, nurses, lab technicians, water and sanitation specialists, and other support staff -- to set up outside of Milan, Italy, where the coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed the local medical capacity," it added.

The 68-bed respiratory care unit is set up in the parking lot of the Cremona hospital, providing surge capacity to COVID-19 patients in northern Italy where the coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed the local medical infrastructure.

The Emergency Field Hospital is customizable to provide emergency relief in disaster-stricken areas where medical infrastructure is damaged, overwhelmed, or nonexistent.

The Emergency Field Hospital has a unique layout with specialized respiratory equipment to provide the highest level care to patients who are suffering from the virus.

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As of Tuesday evening, Italy had the second-highest number of coronavirus cases with 31,506 and the second-highest number of mortalities, at 2,503.

Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.

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