Death of infant with COVID-19: Infection could be ‘incidental finding’

Coronavirus illustration | STOCK PHOTO

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Health authorities in Cebu are still investigating and determining the cause of death of the one-year-old male infant who tested positive of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

But while doing so, they announced that the infection could be an ‘incidental finding’.

Dr. Jaime Bernadas, director of the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH – 7), said they received initial information from the patient’s physicians that he suffered acute dehydration.

“Physicians tagged the child under incidental finding since we are still narrowing down whether his death was due to COVID-19 or purely due to acute dehydration,” Bernadas told the media in a virtual press conference on Monday, May 11.

Bernadas said that while doctors who attempted to revive the infant upon arrival at a government hospital in Cebu City found no significant findings in his lungs, they still extracted swab samples from him.

“He was labeled as dead on arrival (DOA) because the doctors were not able to revive him. Nevertheless, they took swab samples and was later found out to have the virus,” explained Bernadas.

“We still included him in the tally of COVID-19 mortalities since he tested positive of the infection, and that’s the policy,” he added.

The one-year-old infant, whose address is still being verified, is among the three COVID-19-related mortalities reported for Cebu last Sunday, May 10.

Initial findings showed that the child was only rushed to the hospital after suffering from fever, diarrhea. and vomiting for five days.

Bernadas also said contact tracing was now underway to locate the infant’s parents, and have them undergo swab test to see if they too got infected.

Rare case?

The DOH-7 top official said health experts, including from their office, were still baffled about the infant’s case, citing cases from other areas that indicate COVID-19 could not result in acute dehydration.

“Based on our analysis, it’s very rare for the virus to manifest as gastroenteritis. And there are no reports both here and abroad indicating that it could manifest acute dehydration and lead to death,” Bernadas said in Cebuano.

Cebu has registered a total of 24 COVID-19-related deaths as of May 10, with most patients found out to have underlying health conditions.

With 1,784 confirmed cases, the island has a 1.3 percent case fatality rate./dbs