• Dr Hu and Dr Yi were infected with the virus from work and were left fighting for their lives after catching the virus.
• Doctors saved them by hooking them to a life-support machine called ECMO
• Dr Lu noted that Change of their skin tone is caused by hormonal imbalances due to liver damage

Two Chinese doctors in Wuhan, China, who were critically ill with COVID-19 woke up to find that their skin turned dark after the virus damaged their livers. 

Dr Yi Fan and Dr Hu Weifeng, both 42, were exposed to the virus while treating patients at the Wuhan Central Hospital in January.

According to their doctor, their abnormal skin colour is caused by hormonal imbalances because the virus has damaged their liver.

The duo were both diagnosed on January 18. According to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, they were first to the Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital and then transferred twice,

The two doctors are to be colleagues with late Li Wenliang, the whistleblower of the disease who later died of the disease on February 7.

Dr Yi, a cardiologist, recovered from COVID-19 after doctors placed him on a life-support machine called ECMO for 39 days.

ECMO is an extreme life-support procedure that substitutes the function of the heart and lungs by pumping oxygen into the blood outside the body.

Speaking to CCTV from his hospital bed today, Dr Yi who is still struggling to walk on his own said he had largely recovered from the illness. 

Dr Yi said he was traumatised during the time he battled with the deadly disease he was traumatised.

He told a reporter: ‘When I first gained conscious, especially after I got to know about my condition, I felt scared. I had nightmares often.’

The doctor went on to reveal that doctor’s counselling helped him to gradually overcome the psychological hurdle.

Currently, He is being looked after in a regular ward in Wuhan’s China-Japan Friendship Hospital.

As for Dr Hu, whose condition was more serious, Dr Li Shusheng who treated Dr Hu him said that his overall health is weak.

Dr Hu who has been bed-bound for 99 days is still being looked after in the intensive care units in the same hospital as Dr Yi.

‘He could not stop talking to the doctors who come to check on him,’ Dr Li said.

Dr Hu underwent ECMO therapy from February 7 to March 22 and retrieved his capacity to speak on April 11.

According to Dr Li, he suspected that the two medics’ skin turned dark as a result of a type of medicine they had taken at the beginning of the treatment.

He noted that one of the side effects of the drug is the darkening of the skin colour. 

According to him, after the function of their livers improves, their skin colour will return to normal