23-day-old baby dies of COVID-19 in Philippines

A 23-day old baby succumbed to COVID-19 in the Philippines, it was reported on Friday.

Manila, April 10 A 23-day old baby succumbed to COVID-19 in the Philippines, it was reported on Friday.

The newborn, one of the youngest COVID-19 fatality, died on April 5 in Lipa, a city situated some 70 km south of Manila in Philippines, however the test results for the virus were not known until Thursday, reports Efe new.

Another four-day-old baby born prematurely, and who tested positive for COVID-19, died on Wednesday in Brazil due to respiratory failure, while a five-month old died a day later in Bolivia from the virus after spending a week in the intensive care unit.

The Philippine Department of Health is yet to confirm the Lipa baby's death in its daily bulletin, which on Thursday night reported 4,076 COVID-19 cases with 203 deaths and 124 recovered patients in the country.

The country's biggest and most populous island, Luzon, has been under strict quarantine since March 17 after being identified as the COVID-19 the main focus of concentration in the Philippines.

However, cases have been reported in all provinces of the country.

To contain the spread of COVID-19, the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, on Monday ordered strict quarantine measures for the entire island of Luzon, home to some 57 million inhabitants, and strengthened the lockdown of the capital until April 12.

Health authorities have announced that from April 14 onwards the country would be able to carry out massive testing to isolate the positive cases, including asymptomatic ones, after the establishment of laboratories across the country and the arrival of thousands of testing kits donated by China, South Korea and Brunei.

( With inputs from IANS )