Guatemalan boy who died in U.S. custody had the flu: state officials

[December 29, 2018]  By Sofia Menchu and Mica Rosenberg

GUATEMALA CITY/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The 8-year-old Guatemalan boy who died in the custody of U.S. border agents this week had the flu before he passed away but the cause of his death is still unknown, state officials said on Friday.

Felipe Gomez Alonzo was the second Guatemalan child to die this month while being held by U.S. authorities, sparking outrage from immigration advocates.

In the wake of the deaths, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was traveling to the border to observe medical screenings and conditions at Border Patrol stations while Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate have called for a full investigation.

Gomez fell ill after being detained near the U.S. border with Mexico with his father. The two had traveled to the United States from their remote village of Yalambojoch in Guatemala.

New Mexico's Medical Investigator's office said in a statement that nasal and lung swabs during an autopsy found Gomez had influenza B, but said "determining an accurate cause of death requires further evaluation."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the flu diagnosis.

Marta Larra, a spokeswoman from the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry, said the government expected to receive the official results of the autopsy in roughly a month, and that Gomez's body would probably be returned to the country in about two weeks.

Gomez and his father were detained on Dec. 18 in El Paso, Texas, for illegally entering the country, but several days later they were moved to the Alamogordo Border Patrol Station in New Mexico.

The family of Felipe Gomez Alonzo, a 8-year-old boy detained alongside his father for illegally entering the U.S., who fell ill and died in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is seen at the family's home in the village of Yalambojoch, Guatemala December 27, 2018. REUTERS/Luis Echeverria

After a border agent noticed the boy looked sick, Gomez was transferred to a nearby hospital but he was released with a prescription for an antibiotic and Ibuprofen. After the boy began to vomit and had a fever, he was taken back to the hospital in the evening, where he died just before midnight on Dec. 24. [L1N1YV0OM]

Antibiotics do not work as treatment for viruses like the flu, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kathryn Hampton, who coordinates the Asylum Network Program of the New York-based advocacy organization Physicians for Human Rights, said in a statement that border facilities are not well equipped to handle the increasing number of children and families migrating mostly from Central America to the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to close the southern U.S. border unless Congress agrees to provide $5 billion in taxpayer funds for a border wall with Mexico, blaming Democrats for a partial government shutdown over the spending issue.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Anthony Esposito in Mexico City and Julio Cesar Chavez in El Paso, Texas; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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