3-Year-Old Azusa Girl Hospitalized for 1 Month With ‘Common’ Form of Coronavirus

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    LOS ANGELES, CA (KTLA) — A 3-year-old girl from Azusa has been hospitalized for a month with a form of coronavirus, her mother told KTLA on Wednesday.

Aliyah Cardoza was an active, typically healthy child when she suddenly became ill days before Christmas, Gloria Aguilera said of her daughter.

It started with normal flu-like symptoms: “fever and a cough, and it just escalated to where her fever was not breaking,” Aguilera said.

Aliyah was initially diagnosed with a case of viral flu. But her symptoms worsened and medications didn’t help, prompting the single mother of two to bring the toddler to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles on Dec. 23.

Doctors told Aguilera that her daughter has the NL63 strain of the coronavirus, which is different from the one that has killed at least 17 people and sickened hundreds in China.

“They said it is common,” Aguilera said. “It’s … really relieving that she doesn’t have that strain.”

Nevertheless, the mother worries about her little girl, who has been at the hospital for a month and remains intubated with breathing and chest tubes. She said the toddler’s lung collapsed, and she had a seizure on Sunday.

“I didn’t know she would end up in this kind of situation to where I would have to see my daughter go through so much pain,” Aguilera said through tears.

Doctors are hopeful that Aliyah will make a full recovery, although it is unclear how much longer she’ll be in the hospital.

A GoFundMe account has been started to financially help Aguilera — who also has a 4-year-old son — spend more time at the hospital with her daughter.

“As much as I want to be there for her 24/7 I have a son that actually needs me to be there for him too,” Aguilera wrote on the page. “I am still working when I can but I created this account so I can be there with her more and not worry about how I am going to be there financially for both of them.”

The page has raised over $5,000 as of early Thursday afternoon.

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