THE OLDEST person in Europe is looking forward to celebrating her 117th birthday after she survived a battle with Covid-19.
Lucile Randon, a French nun who took the name Sister Andre when she joined a Catholic charitable order in 1944, will turn 117 years old tomorrow.
There was serious concern for her health when she tested positive for Covid-19 in her retirement home in the south of France in mid-January, but Sister Andre miraculously fought off the virus without exhibiting any symptoms.
She told France's BFM Media at the time that she was not afraid of the virus as she was not afraid to die, and looked forward to joining her big brother and grandparents in Heaven.
Sister Andre, Lucile Randon, prays in a wheelchair, on the eve of her 117th birthday - born on February 11, 1904 - in an EHPAD (Housing Establishment for Dependant Elderly People) in Toulon, southern France, where she has been living since 2009. (Photo by NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP) (Photo by NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP via Getty Images)According to RTÉ News, a spokesperson for the Sainte Catherine Labouré retirement home, where Sister Andre lives, said she had been cured of the virus and was "looking forward to celebrating her 117th birthday".
"She has been very lucky."
Sister Andre will celebrate her birthday tomorrow with a smaller group of friends than her 116 previous birthdays due to the continued threat of the virus, but the milestone occasion will still be marked.
The devout Catholic is the oldest person in Europe and the second-oldest person in the world, after Japan's Kane Tanake, who turned 118 last month.
