Boy, 13, who died of coronavirus alone will be buried without family after siblings show symptoms
3 April 2020, 11:32
The UK's youngest coronavirus victim will be buried today without his family present after his siblings started to show symptoms.
Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, 13, died alone in King's College Hospital on Monday after testing positive for the virus three days previously.
Since then, two of his siblings have started to develop symptoms including a temperature and loss of taste.
It means that his mother and six siblings must now isolate at their home in Brixton, and will hopefully be able to watch the service through a live stream.
Mr Stephenson said: "Shaykh Sharif Zain will be leading the funeral and I will be delivering a short speech for the Abdulwahab family and a few close family and friends.
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"We hope that we can send a live stream of the funeral to his mother and siblings so they can be there remotely, but they are obviously devastated that they can’t be there in person again.
"It’s extremely upsetting for everyone involved, but they have been very moved by the warmth and very positive messages of support from people following their appeal."
In a statement at the time of this death, Ismail's family said they were "beyond devastated" by his death.
"Ismail started showing symptoms and had difficulties breathing and was admitted to King's College Hospital," the family said.
"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."
A GoFundMe page went on to raise more than £50,000 to cover the cost of the funeral expenses.
There have now been 2,921 confirmed deaths from Covid-19 in the United Kingdom.
Globally, there have been more than 1 million confirmed cases, and more than 51,000 deaths.
