Dr Rajendra Kapila, acclaimed infectious diseases expert dies of COVID-19

Infectious disease specialist and Rutgers University professor Dr Rajendra Kapila passed away in Delhi on April 28 after testing positive for Covid-19 on April 8. He was 81. Dr Kapila worked extensively on HIV-AIDS, trained many people in the field and practised at Rutgers University for 50 years. He returned to India with wife Dr Deepti Saxena-Kapila in the last week of March and stayed in Ghaziabad. He was supposed to fly back to the US by the second week of April but was admitted to Delhi’s Shanti Mukund Hospital, where he died.

“For the last one year I have been working at a Covid-19 lab in New Jersey and had ensured a safe environment at home,” said Dr Deepti, who specialises in microbiology. “It is ironic that we came to India for two weeks and he contracted it here.” She said Dr Kapila got both doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the US.  According to Dr. Ruby Bansal, who said she was personally involved in his care, he tested RT-PCR positive for COVID-19 at the Yashoda Super Specialty Hospital in Kaushambi, and took his last breath at the Shanti Mukand Hospital in Delhi.