Boy, 9, is 1st French death from likely COVID-linked illness

LE PECQ, France (AP) — Medics at a hospital that treated the first child to die in France with a puzzling inflammatory condition seemingly linked to the new coronavirus initially thought the 9-year-old had scarlet fever, and sent him home.

The boy then suffered a heart attack at home that night, resulting in brain damage that later led to his death.

Details of the case were released Friday by the La Timone hospital in the southern French city of Marseille. The child spent six days in intensive care at the hospital after his heart attack in the evening of May 2.

Earlier that afternoon, the boy had been taken to an emergency ward in another of the city’s hospitals. There, an experienced pediatrician examined the child and diagnosed symptoms “similar to scarlet fever," said Doctor Fabrice Michel, who heads the pediatric intensive care unit at La Timone. Scarlet fever is generally mild, usually beginning with a temperature and a sore throat, and is easily treated with antibiotics.

“The child didn’t have serious signs, justifying his return home,” Michel said.

But the boy suffered a heart attack a few hours later and was rushed to intensive care at La Timone. There, blood tests indicated the boy had been infected with COVID-19 in the previous weeks, although he didn’t have its symptoms and was no longer positive for the virus when admitted to hospital.

Instead, some of the boy’s symptoms resembled those of Kawasaki disease, a rare blood vessel disorder, Michel said. About 125 children in France have developed Kawasaki-like symptoms during the coronavirus outbreak, arousing suspicions of a link.

The death at La Timone was the first fatality in France linked to the syndrome. The boy died on May 8.

“What is certain is that this illness is thankfully very...