Italica Grondona spent more than 20 days recovering from COVID-19 in a hospital located in the northern Italian city of Genoa, according to CNN. Dr. Vera Sicbaldi said the elderly patient’s story could provide hope to others in pandemic-ravaged Italy and said Grondona had been given a nickname.

“We nicknamed her ‘Highlander’ — the immortal,” Sicbaldi said. “Italica represents a hope for all the elderly facing this pandemic.”

The doctor said she was first hospitalized for “mild heart failure” and began to show some symptoms of COVID-19.

“She only had some mild coronavirus symptoms, so we tested her, and she was positive, but we did very little, she recovered on her own,” Sicbaldi noted.

The news comes as another patient, a 101-year-old man in another northern Italian city, also survived a bout with the coronavirus. Both Grondona and the man were born around the time of the Spanish flu, another pandemic that killed millions across the globe.

“We got serological samples, she is the first patient we know that might have gone through the ‘Spanish flu’ since she was born in 1917,” Sicbaldi said.

Grondona, who has left the hospital, will spend time at home as she recovers.

“I don’t know what her secret is, but I know she is a free and independent woman,” said her nephew Renato Villa Grondona.

Italy has had more than 86,000 cases of the coronavirus and more than 9,100 deaths. The country imposed a strict nationwide lockdown, which eventually expanded to include activities such as jogging or going for walks.