A 101-year-old man has been released from hospital after recovering from the novel coronavirus, Gloria Lisi, the deputy mayor of the Italian city of Rimini, has said.

The man, who has been named only as “Mr P,” was admitted to hospital in Rimini, northeast Italy, last week after testing positive for Covid-19 and left the hospital on Thursday.

Lisi said his “truly extraordinary” recovery gave “hope for the future.”

“Mr P made it. The family brought him home yesterday evening. To teach us that even at 101 years the future is not written,” she said.

Mr P was born in 1919, during the Spanish flu pandemic, which is estimated to have killed between 30 million and 50 million people worldwide.

Rimini had registered 1,189 cases of coronavirus as of Thursday, according to the Italian Civil Protection Department.

Authorities in 197 countries and territories have reported more than 549,000 novel coronavirus cases worldwide since China reported its first cases in December.

Italy has been particularly badly hit, with more deaths than any other country.

According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, there have been 80,589 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Italy and 8,215 deaths.