New Jersey coronavirus update: Rutgers professor dies of COVID-19 in India

NEW JERSEY (WABC) -- Dr. Rajendra Kapila, a renowned infectious disease expert and professor at Rutgers University who went to India to help care for his family as the coronavirus there rages out of control, has died from the virus.

Smoke from thousands of funeral pyres darken the Indian sky near New Delhi.

The official death count from COVID is nearly 2,000 every day, but most believe it is much higher even than that.

Now, a doctor who practiced for 50 years in New Jersey is among the dead.

Dr. Bina Kapila didn't want to appear on television, but she was married to Dr. Rajendra Kapila for 40 years before they divorced a decade ago.

He was an infectious disease specialist at Rutgers and Dr. Bina Kapila says he was a brilliant doctor.

"It's very bad in India," she said. "He was so brilliant when we were in college, in medical school, that the professors of medicine after they gave a lecture they would come to him and ask him did I cover everything."

Dr. Rajendra Kapila had plenty of good reason to stay in the U.S., he was 81 years old, in the age group most vulnerable to the virus.

He also had diabetes and heart complications.

He decided to go to New Delhi anyway, for one week.

"What can go wrong in one week? So he was only going to go for one week," Dr. Bina Kapila said.

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