Thailand’s Department of Disease Control (DDC) said today (Thursday) that the 6-year-old COVID-19 infected schoolboy, who died on earlier this week, had been diagnosed with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C).

DDC Director-General Dr. Opart Karnkawinpong said that the boy had been treated at a private clinic after he was diagnosed with COVID-19, before he was taken to Pathum Thani Hospital.

Doctors at the hospital tried their best, but failed to save him because he also suffered from MIS-C and was unvaccinated against COVID-19, said Dr. Opart, as he expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents.

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, MIS-C was first identified in April 2020 by doctors in the United States and the United Kingdom. The condition has also been called paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS).

MIS-C is an illness which can occur after a COVID-19 infection and mostly affects school-age children. It is uncommon, but can be serious. The initial symptoms often include a fever, rashes, red eyes, diarrhoea and vomiting, which may get worse over a few days. The inflammation can affect hearing, blood vessels and other organs, which can make children very ill.

Dr. Opart said, however, that MIS-C can be prevented if the children are vaccinated, as he urged parents to get their children inoculated.

He disclosed that most of the new infections now are related to the Omicron BA.5 sub-variant, which spreads faster than the others, especially among school children who tend to be close together most of the time.

He said that most of the infections are not serious cases, with the majority developing a fever, sore throat and a runny nose, which pass in a few days.

According to the Public Health Ministry, 2,607 new COVID-19 cases were admitted to hospitals in the past 24 hours and 23 fatalities were reported, bringing the accumulated death toll since January 1st this year to 9,375. 854 patients are currently being treated for lung inflammations.