A migrant child who had been in a detention center on the U.S. border was treated for a severe case of typhoid fever when he arrived in Utah last month.
“He developed it badly enough that he needed to be hospitalized,” said Angela Dunn, a physician and the state’s epidemiologist. “Why it was so bad when he got to us is a whole other can of worms.”
The boy, a minor whose age Dunn could not disclose, left the immigration holding center and came to Utah by bus to stay with family here. When he got to the state, he was vomiting and had severe stomach pain — which typically come in the later stages of the disease.