LONDON: A 13-year-old boy has become the youngest person suspected to have died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the UK. Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, from Brixton in London, passed away on Monday in the early hours of the morning at King’s College University Hospital after being admitted on Friday. A spokesman for the hospital trust said: “Sadly, a 13-year-old boy who tested positive for COVID-19 has passed away, and our thoughts and condolences are with his family at this time.” Abdulwahab is thought to have had no underlying health conditions. His family will await a coroner’s report in order to confirm the cause of death. In a statement, the family said: “He was put on a ventilator and then put into an induced coma but sadly died yesterday (Monday) morning. To our knowledge he had no underlying health conditions. We are beyond devastated.” Given the highly contagious nature of the disease, and protocols taken to stop its spread, it is believed that Abdulwahab died without any family members or friends by his side. A fundraiser for his family, meanwhile, has raised over £55,000 ($68,000) at the time of writing — having originally aimed for just £4,000. The fundraiser, on website GoFundMe, was set up by Mark Stephenson, college director at Madinah College in South London, where he is a colleague of Abdulwahab’s sister. A statement on the page said: “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 and to support the family, who sadly also lost their father to cancer.” It added: “May Allah grant the family patience through this difficult time and make it a means of drawing closer to Him.” The UK has so far seen exponential growth in the rate of COVID-19 cases and the number of fatalities in recent days. This despite gradually implementing a series of increasingly stringent guidelines over the past two weeks to help stop the spread of the virus and ease the burden on the National Health Service. On Tuesday 393 deaths were recorded, bringing the total number of dead to 1,808. The BBC reported that only 0.3 percent of teenagers who contract COVID-19 require hospital treatment, and just 0.006 percent die as a result, making Abdulwahab’s case very rare. “Two out of every 30,000 infections among this age group will not survive,” said BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle. “But it does happen, as this distressing case shows.”