B.C.'s Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) has confirmed the passenger aboard a Vancouver-bound Air Canada flight who later tested positive for COVID-19 is the same case announced Thursday.
Air Canada confirmed the passenger flew from Montreal to Vancouver Feb. 14, and said health officials confirmed the case with the airline Saturday.
The airline added it is working with public health authorities and has taken "all recommended measures."
The passenger is a woman in her 30s who recently returned from Iran. She is B.C.'s sixth confirmed case of COVID-19.
The woman went to a local hospital with flu-like symptoms after returning to B.C., and is recovering in isolation at her home in the Fraser Health region.
Other passengers on the flight who sat near the woman, as well as flight crew, are being notified, according to the PHSA, which did not provide a flight number.
The case is being called a "sentinel event," or an indicator of more widespread transmission, as the patient did not have a connection to China or that country's Hubei province, where the virus originated.
Iran has announced 43 cases of COVID-19 and eight deaths as of Sunday.
B.C. has five other confirmed cases, although one has since recovered.
Meanwhile, officials in Ontario announced another case of COVID-19 in Toronto on Saturday: a woman who arrived in Canada from China on Friday.
Ontario health officials said she wore a mask during her flight to Toronto and had limited exposure to others after landing.
She is Ontario's only active case of COVID-19, as that province's three previously-confirmed cases have all recovered.
As of Sunday, COVID-19 has infected 78,998 people worldwide and killed 2,470.
- With files from the Canadian Press
