SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A passenger flown to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar from Wuhan, China, was confirmed today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to have the deadly coronavirus.
The CDC is conducting a thorough contact investigation of the person to determine contacts and to assess if those contacts had high-risk exposures, according to Ana Toro, a CDC public affairs officer.
The case is the 13th coronavirus in the United States and seventh in California. Los Angeles and Orange counties both have one confirmed patient.
KGTV first reported the case, saying the patient was aboard an initial flight of 167 evacuees from the Wuhan area who landed at Miramar last Wednesday. Later that day, health officials said four of the passengers had been taken to hospitals after displaying potential symptoms of the illness -- two adults to UC San Diego Health and a 4-year-old girl and an adult to Rady Children's Hospital.
The two patients taken to Rady were later cleared and returned to Miramar to continue a 14-day quarantine. Another person from the flight was hospitalized the following day at UCSD for observation.
On Friday, a second plane carrying 65 people from Wuhan arrived at Miramar, and two of them were later hospitalized for observation, authorities said. One adult was taken to UCSD Health and a child was taken to Rady Children's Hospital.
More than 1,000 deaths from the coronavirus have been reported, all but two of them in China. More than 43,000 cases of the illness have been reported worldwide, the vast majority of them in China.
Nearly 200 Americans arrived at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside on Jan. 29 and are quarantined there after being evacuated from Wuhan. That quarantine period is scheduled to end Tuesday.