A 12-year-old girl, whose mother died in hospital from Covid-19, has been left orphaned with no living relatives in the United Kingdom.
Rutendo Mukotsanjera, aged 45 and originally from Zimbabwe, died of coronavirus on April 10.
Her 12-year-old daughter Cheidza, known as Chichi, is now being cared for by members of the Renew Church in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, where her mother worshipped.
Church members have been in contact with relatives in Zimbabwe to decide what is in the best interests of the young girl.
According to The Mirror, Ms Mukotsanjera was a public health official and had previously worked for the Infrastructure Bank in Zimbabwe.
Britain’s black and minority ethnic communities appear to have been hardest hit by the virus sweeping the country.
Despite only making up 14 percent of the population of England and Wales, they represent a third of the patients in intensive care with coronavirus, according to the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre.
Chaand Nagpaul, head of the British Medical Association, said this was ‘extremely disturbing and worrying’.
‘We have heard the virus does not discriminate between individuals, but there’s no doubt there appears to be a manifest disproportionate severity of infection in BAME people and doctors,’ he told The Guardian newspaper.
The first ten doctors who died with coronavirus in Britain were from ethnic minorities, including Alfa Sa’adu, Jitendra Rathod, Mohamed Sami Shousha and Syed Haider.
Ms Mukotsanjera, pictured, was originally from Zimbabwe. Members of her church are currently looking after Chichi
In a letter to the government, several opposition Labour MPs said deaths represented ‘serious concerns’ and called for an urgent investigation.
Sunder Katwala, the head of thinktank British Future, also said that a large number of Filippino nurses, hospital porters and other staff had been affected by coronavirus.
‘Tragically, a disproportionate number of those in the NHS who died are people who came to make their lives here and to work in the NHS,’ Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a recent press conference.
Non-British staff make up 12 percent of the UK healthcare workforce, according to the Office for National Statistics.
In London, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in Britain, this rises to 23 percent.
In terms of patients, people from ethnic minorities are more likely to live in London or in the West Midlands – another hard hit area – and suffer more poverty and ill health.
‘South Asians live in more deprived areas and have more cardiovascular disease and diabetes,’ said Kamlesh Khunti, an expert in ethnic minority health who led the ICNARC study.
They also often live in larger, multi-generational households and so ‘social isolation may not be as prevalent’.
Zubaida Haque, deputy director of the race equality Runnymede, said ethnic minorities were also more likely to be in low-paid jobs or be key workers – as transport and delivery staff, healthcare assistants, hospital cleaners and social care workers.
“All of which bring them into more contact with coronavirus and so increase their risk to serious-illness and death,” she told the BBC.Â