In an update to a report at the beginning of June, Spanish National Radio reports (computer translated) the 6-year-old boy from Olot with diphtheria admitted to the Hospital Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona died Saturday.
The child, whose parents refused to vaccinate, has been admitted since May 30 in intensive care.
The damage done by the diphtheria toxin are described as “important and complicated”, which included respiratory, heart and kidney functions .
This was the first case of diphtheria was diagnosed in Catalonia for 32 years and the first in Spain since 1986.
The other eight people diagnosed with diphtheria, friends of the deceased, were treated with antibiotics and have since been out of isolation.
According to the Minister of Health of the Generalitat, Boi Ruiz, the child’s death from diphtheria will hopefully serve for the emergence of a “collective reflection” on the need for the population to be vaccinated.
Ruiz said that the main cause of death was diphtheria, and that the child would not have fallen ill if she had been vaccinated.
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