A 13-year-old girl, healthy and with no pre-existing conditions, is now hospitalized at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center in serious condition after contracting coronavirus, Ynet reported.
According to her doctors, the teen's case, since usually such young and completely healthy patients do not suffer such severe cases of coronavirus.
Health Ministry statistics show that the teen is the only girl of her age in Israel who is hospitalized in serious condition with coronavirus. According to her sister, their parents wanted to vaccinate the girl, but the process was delayed and in the end she contracted coronavirus instead.
"This is a case of coronavirus which we usually see in adults, except that this time we're talking about a 13-year-old, completely healthy and unvaccinated," Professor Yechiel Shlezinger, Medical Director of Shaare Zedek's Wilf Children's Hospital and a specialist in infectious diseases, told Ynet.
"Her family contracted coronavirus a few months ago and she came to us on Friday.
"We treated her with our entire arsenal of medications against coronavirus. She did not require artificial ventilation, but high concentrations of oxygen. The girl is in the ICU since there is a potential for deterioration in her condition. As far as I know, this is the first instance of very serious coronavirus in a healthy child who arrived at the ICU."
The girl's sister told Ynet: "We were in Eilat and we returned from vacation over a week ago. Everyone's first test came back negative. Towards the end of last week my sister began to feel unwell and an additional test came back positive. Over time she experienced serious difficulty breathing, and her fever did not stop dropping. In recent days her condition stabilized but she still requires an oxygen machine. She's a completely healthy girl and certainly we intended to vaccinate her. My parents are vaccinated and both my older siblings are as well. But the younger ones did not manage."