A misplaced breathing tube contributed to the death of a 13-year-old boy who became the UK’s first known child victim of COVID, a coroner has found.

Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, of Brixton, southwest London, died of acute respiratory distress syndrome, caused by COVID-19 pneumonia on 30 March 2020 – three days after testing positive for the virus.

Hours before his death at King’s College Hospital, a breathing tube was found to be in the wrong position and a decision was made by a consultant in paediatric intensive care to leave it and monitor him.

He suffered a cardiac arrest before he died.

Senior Coroner Andrew Harris said: “I am satisfied that he (Ismail) would not have died when he did were it not for the tube misplacement.”

Ismail’s elder sister said her brother first fell ill on 23 March 2020.

She said his shortness of breath worsened two days later and the family phoned emergency services on 26 March and he was taken to hospital.

He was admitted after suffering fever, coughing, shortness of breath, vomiting and diarrhoea and was put into intensive care a day later, when he tested positive for the virus.

Ismail’s family were not able to be with him in intensive care because of hospital policies at the time. Seven days before his death, Boris Johnson announced the first national lockdown in the UK.

The teenager’s elder sister previously described her brother as a “kind and genuine soul”.

Ismail’s family were also unable to attend his funeral as they were self-isolating after some of his siblings contracted symptoms of COVID.

In April 2020, four people wearing protective clothing, gloves and face masks lowered his coffin into a south-east London grave.

On 30 March 2020, the government said in its daily COVID briefing that 22,141 people had tested positive for the virus.

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