A coroner has determined that the death of the first infant to die from Covid in the UK was caused by the misplacement of a breathing tube.
On March 26, 2020, Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, then 13 years old, was transported to King’s College Hospital in London with symptoms that included fever, coughing, and vomiting.
His family was unable to visit him when he was transferred to intensive care the next day due to hospital procedures in effect at the time.
Ismail, from Brixton in south-west London, died of acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by coronavirus pneumonia on March 30 – three days after he tested positive.
Images of his funeral, which the family were unable to attend as they were self-isolating, circulated widely in the early days of the Covid lockdown.
They showed his coffin being lowered into a grave by four people wearing white protective clothing, gloves and face masks.
Hours before Ismail’s death, an endotracheal tube (ET) used to help patients breathe was found to be in the wrong position and a decision was made by a consultant in paediatric intensive care to leave it and monitor him.
Senior Coroner Andrew Harris said: ‘I am satisfied that he (Ismail) would not have died when he did were it not for the tube misplacement.’