Portable COVID-19 wards are set up outside a public hospital in near Seoul. (Yonhap)
A South Korean child died of COVID-19 on Sunday, marking the country’s first pediatric death from the disease, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Tuesday.
The KDCA did not make public the child’s age or gender for privacy reasons, but sources familiar with the matter told The Korea Herald that the 5-year-old girl was dead on arrival.
When she was brought into the hospital’s emergency service’s isolation unit on Sunday, her heart had already stopped. The medics performed CPR for 20 minutes but she could not be resuscitated.
The medics conducted a post-mortem test when her caretakers said she had shown fever and respiratory symptoms since Nov. 20. The test came back positive on Monday.
The sources said she suffered from a chronic neurological condition.
She is the first patient under 19 to die of COVID-19 in Korea.
By Kim Arin (
arin@heraldcorp.com)
