Medical workers wait by an ambulance outside a sports center where an intensive care unit was set up, near the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, on Monday, March 23. Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

The number of doctors who have died in Italy since the coronavirus epidemic began has risen to 23, the Italian federation of doctors said today.

Unfortunately, the sad list of doctors who fell during the Covid-19 epidemic is getting longer. And while the official data of infected health workers increases, released every evening by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, many doctors die suddenly, even if the cause of death is not directly attributable to the virus," the federation says in a statement on its website.

Some 19 of the 23 deceased doctors worked in the Lombardy region, the worst affected by coronavirus. The other four worked in Naples (South Italy), Emilia Romagna (north Italy) and Marche (central Italy).

Some 4,824 health workers have been infected by coronavirus, according to the latest report by the institute published on Sunday.