A Denver teenager has died after battling COVID-19 for the second time, his loved ones said.
Wilber Portillo, 18, first contracted the infectious disease after taking a trip to Los Angeles with his cousin, the Denverite reported.
Two months after recovering from the virus, he apparently got hit again and developed a fever after a party where two other people tested positive for COVID-19, the paper reported.
Portillo went to the doctor’s office on Nov. 18, where he was told he had a “very strong infection in his lungs.”
That was the last [time] I’ve heard of him, ”Portillo’s girlfriend, Andrea Ferrel, told news channel KDVR.
That night, the teen died in his sleep, the outlets reported.
“It’s a bit hard to know that he doesn’t exist physically,” Castillo told Denverite. “He was a man of a lot of light.”
It is not known what caused his death, but the doctor’s office informed his family two days later that he had tested positive for the virus.
“It just surprised us how it happened,” said Castillo. “We will never find out what caused his death.”
Reports did not confirm whether Castillo – an urban farmer and budding entrepreneur – had become ill with a mutated strain of the virus.
Health experts have said reinfection is possible, but cases are rare.
Portillo’s cousin, Jamie Gomez-Gonzalez, is urging people to take the virus seriously, “no matter how young or healthy you seem.”
“Please stay at home as much as possible,” he wrote on a GoFundMe page to cover funeral expenses.