A 13-year old schoolboy from Brixton has died alone in a London hospital after contracting coronavirus.
Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab died at Kings’ College London on Monday, and family members were not allowed to visit him or be by his side as he died for fear they would catch coronavirus.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to pay for his funeral, which was created by Madinha College in Brixton.
A statement from Ismail’s family said, “Ismail started showing symptoms and had difficulties breathing and was admitted to Kings College Hospital.
“He was put on a ventilator and then put into an induced coma but sadly died yesterday morning.
“To our knowledge he had no underlying health conditions. We are beyond devastated.”
Mark Stephenson, College Director at the Madinah College where Ismail’s sister works said, “Ismail was tested positive for coronavirus.
“They have not released the body yet, as the coroner wants to do an autopsy, I’m assuming due to his young age and not having underlying conditions.”
The fundraising page reads: “It is with great sadness to announce that the brother of one of our teachers at Madinah College has sadly passed away this morning (Monday 30th March 2020) due to being infected with Covid 19.
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.
“We at Madinah College would like to appeal to our brothers and sisters to donate generously to help raise £4,000 for the funeral costs.”
Dr Emmanuel Andre, a government spokesman in Belgium, said the death of someone so young “is a very rare occurrence” and this tragedy has “shook us.”
Belgium has now imposed its coronavirus lockdown restrictions to continue until 12 April, and has 12,705 confirmed cases with 705 deaths, with a country that has 11.5m people.
Dr Andre said it was “an emotionally difficult moment, because it involves a child, and it has also upset the medical and scientific community.”
On Tuesday a record breaking 367 people have died in England, the highest death toll the country has seen in just one day, marking the darkest day for the NHS.
Those who died were aged 19 to 98-years old, and the teenager had no underlying health conditions, NHS England said.
“Patients were aged between 19 and 98-years old and all but 28 patients [aged between 19 and 91-years old]had underlying health conditions.”
The Department for Health has given an update on testing in the UK.
They said, “As of 9am on 31 March, a total of 143,186 people have been tested and 25,150 have tested positive.”