Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, a 13-year-old boy from Brixton, who tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has died, according to a London hospital trust.
The boy died Monday at King’s College Hospital. He is believed to be the youngest person to die from the coronavirus in the United Kingdom.
Ismail’s family was “beyond devastated” by the news of his death, according to a family friend.
The boy had no apparent underlying medical conditions. He was tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday.
It was rare for teenagers to get critically ill after contracting the virus, according to BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle.
“Just 0.3% of those who show symptoms require hospital care and 0.006% die – in other words, two out of every 30,000 infections among this age group will not survive,” Triggle said. “But it does happen, as this distressing case shows.”
Ismail was taken to the hospital after he started showing symptoms of breathing difficulties. His family said, “He was put on a ventilator and then put into an induced coma but sadly died yesterday [Monday] morning.”
“To our knowledge, he had no underlying health conditions,” they added. “We are beyond devastated.”
He died without any of his family members close by due to the highly contagious disease.
Dr. Nathalie MacDermott from King’s College London said, “Ismail’s death highlights the importance of us all taking the precautions we can to reduce the spread of infection in the UK and worldwide.”
“It is important that a coroner assesses whether a post-mortem is necessary to further understand the exact cause of death,” she added. “While chronic underlying medical conditions are known to result in worse outcomes in COVID-19 infection, we have heard of cases of younger individuals with no known medical problems succumbing to the disease.” “It is essential that we undertake research to determine why a proportion of deaths occur outside of the groups expected to succumb to infection,” Dr. MacDermott continued, “as it may indicate an underlying genetic susceptibility of how the immune system interacts with the virus.”
