A six-year-old boy stricken by a rare rheumatic illness died after his immune system tried to fight it but attacked his heart instead.

Muhammad Usmaan, who lived with his parents and two siblings at Woodhall Terrace in Thornbury, Bradford, had previously been taken to see his doctor after feeling unwell, a Bradford inquest heard yesterday.

He had been feeling tired and had complained of a swollen ankle and a pain in his back about five weeks before his death, but blood tests had come back negative.

However, the day he died on November 2 last year, he had gone to school as normal but had been sent home after vomiting.

It was his mother who collected him, took him home and rang NHS Direct because he was getting short of breath, she was told to take him immediately to Accident & Emergency, the inquest was told.

Once at Bradford Royal Infirmary he was given treatment and showed a slight improvement but he went into respiratory arrest that night and efforts to resuscitate him failed.

A post mortem found his heart was enlarged and a closer examination showed the layers of it had been damaged by rheumatic carditis – a manifestation of rheumatic fever. Acting Bradford coroner Professor Paul Marks said rheumatic fever was not terribly common in the UK and occurred more often in tropical countries.

It usually happens as a result of some kind of streptococcal infection, usually a throat infection – he said.

He added: “There’s probably been a streptococcal infection in the past and the body, in its attempt to rid itself of it, has also targeted the heart as well and that has damaged the layers of the heart ending in heart failure.”

He said the inflammation of the heart was so extensive that it could have affected the rhythm and that the heart muscle itself would have lost its functionality.

Professor Marks, who recorded a verdict of natural death, said it was “a very sad and unfortunate case.”

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