Minister of Health Jeffrey Bostic confirmed a young girl passed away, but the cause of death has not been determined.
Stories making the rounds say the child died on Sunday at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital from complications caused by COVID-19, but Bostic said a dengue test was being done. The symptoms for both illnesses are similar.
A news outlet from Trinidad and Tobago said the girl died from a condition called Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, brought on by COVID. It quoted Dr Joanna Paul, Acting Medical Chief of Staff at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, who said there were 26 such cases in the twin-island republic.
“I can confirm that yesterday we had a death from MIS-C in Barbados. So, we’ve had no deaths in Jamaica, no deaths in Bahamas, no deaths in Trinidad although so far we’ve had 26 cases. But in Barbados we’ve had a death in a child. The PCR was negative but everything else was positive and this child showed classic symptomatology of MIS-C. What it means though is that we are not going to be complacent. We acknowledge that this category of our population as we vaccinate, our children would not be able to have the vaccine and they are still at risk of having mild infection or also having more serious infection like MIS-C and we have to be as aggressive and keep monitoring these children,” she said.
Bostic said it was not an attempt to hide information, but the doctors were still carrying out investigations to determine the exact cause of death.
A family member also confirmed the death and said they wanted to grieve in private. (MB)
