The Italian Association of Doctors has confirmed the death of 51 doctors who all died after testing positive for coronavirus.

The doctors succumbed to the disease as of Friday, according to CNN, citing the Italian Association of Doctors.

The death toll comes after Filippo Anelli, the president of the association, on Thursday called for doctors in the country to be provided with more Personal Protective Equipment, (PPE).

Anelli told The Financial Times in a Thursday article that:

“The first thing to do is to protect healthcare workers, to make sure they are not the ones spreading the virus. Our doctors have been sent to war unarmed,”

“The dead do not make a noise. Yet, the names of our dead friends, our colleagues, put here in black and white, make a deafening noise.”

According to the Italian National Institute of Health, more than 6,000 health workers have been infected by coronavirus as of Thursday,

Italy has the highest COVID-19 death toll of any country in the world, Out of over 86,000 cases of coronavirus in the country as of Friday, there were over 9,100 deaths.