Emmanuel... our tiny Covid miracle
OF ALL the many stories of bravery amid the Covid19 crisis, surely few are more moving than that of the little boy believed to be Britain’s youngest survivor.
Emmanuel Boateng, from southeast London, was born at just 27 weeks – three months early – on January 30, and spent nearly two months in hospital on a ventilator to help him breathe.
He improved enough to be able to go home but 10 days later, after becoming floppy and hot, he was taken to King’s College Hospital where, just minutes from death, he was diagnosed with coronavirus and sepsis.
Emmanuel’s mother Evelyn, 31, who works in a care home, recalled: ‘In that first 24 hours, I was told to prepare for the worst three times. I was on my own in the hospital crying and just praying to God that my little boy was going to be okay.’
The next day test results confirmed the doctors’ suspicions that little Emmanuel had Covid-19.
Now his mother faced an agonising 14-day period of isolation with her husband Maphitus, 39, separated from their son.
Doctors feared
Emmanuel would be too weak to fight the infection so a radical decision was taken: they would apply for the anti-viral drug Remdesivir, which is more commonly used to treat patients with Ebola.
At that stage the drug was still in a trial phase, but only for adults.
After 37 days in hospital, 21 of those in intensive care, he was given the allclear and was finally discharged on May 8 – the day he had been due to be born. Dozens of doctors, nurses and support staff lined the corridor to ‘clap him out’ in an emotional farewell.
Evelyn, who also has a son Morris, four, said: ‘It’s something I will never forget. There was an enormous sense of relief this was a happy story.’