A Missouri teenager who has been hit by cancer three times has died from COVID-19 complications, her family said.
Aspen Deke, 17, of Kansas City, died of the virus on Saturday after a month-long battle that began with her diagnosis in November, Fox4 news station reported.
The high school junior survived a rare form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer that affects white blood cells.
When she was diagnosed with cancer at age 4, she got a poor prognosis, the outlet says.
But she struck cancer three times after four rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, Fox4 reported.
During her battle with the coronavirus, she was admitted to Children’s Mercy Hospital, where she has been in the intensive care unit for children since New Year’s Eve.
Her family said COVID-19 was in some ways more frightening than her previous health anxiety.
“At least with cancer, as bad as it sounds and it’s scary, but there’s a lot you know about it,” her father, Eric Deke, told the news station. “They can say, ‘This is how bad it is, this is what we’re going to do. This is what we expect. “But with this, everything is unknown. ”
According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 267 children have died since the onset of the pandemic, accounting for less than 1 percent of all deaths.