Mexico confirms 1st case of someone with both COVID-19 and influenza
Mexico has confirmed its first case of an individual who has tested positive for both COVID-19 and influenza at the same time.
Dr. Jose Luis Alomia Zegarra, director general of epidemiology at the Mexican Ministry of Health, told a press conference Sunday night that the case was detected in a 54-year-old woman with a number of preexisting conditions who remains hospitalized in stable condition after developing COVID-19 symptoms. She's a cancer survivor and suffers from autoimmune disease, chronic pulmonary issues as well as obesity, according to Zegarra.
Zegarra said the woman first displayed symptoms of COVID-19 at the end of September and was hospitalized. She tested positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 2 as she awaited the results of a panel of over a dozen viral exams. The patient started to receive therapy for COVID-19 and was later discharged from the hospital between Oct. 5 and Oct. 6 after her condition improved.
On Oct. 8, while at home, the woman started to have a fever and respiratory issues again. She was admitted to the hospital a second time, according to Zegarra.
On Saturday, the patient's full virus panel test returned with positive results for both COVID-19 and influenza, Zegarra said.
Since the start of the pandemic, Mexico's health ministry has confirmed more than 817,000 cases of COVID-19 with at least 83,781 deaths. The country has the four-highest death toll from COVID-19 in the world, according to tallies kept by Johns Hopkins University.
ABC News' Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.