A 13-year-old boy named died in King’s College Hospital London on Monday because of COVID-19. He was from Brixton in South London.
As stated by the BBC, he is believed to be the youngest person to have died with the virus in the United Kingdom. Also, he had no apparent underlying health conditions. He was tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, a day after he was admitted to the hospital.
As told by BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle, it was unusual for teenagers to become seriously ill after being infected with the coronavirus.
“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,” he said.
“But it does happen, as this distressing case shows,” he added.
According to BBC, his family said they were “beyond devastated” by his death.
“He was only 13 years old without any pre-existing health conditions and sadly he died without any family members close by due to the highly infectious nature of Covid 19,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday.
He was admitted to the hospital in south London after he starting to show symptoms and having difficulties breathing as said by his family.
“He was put on a ventilator and then put into an induced coma but sadly died yesterday (Monday) morning,” they said.
“To our knowledge, he had no underlying health conditions. We are beyond devastated.”
Source: Al Jazeera, BBC