The test results for the Novel coronavirus for Mill Bay Baptist Fellowship Pastor Norm Sowden have come back negative.
He was hospitalized in Koh Samui, Thailand, after he began to showing symptoms of the flu while visiting a refugee family the church is sponsoring for entry to Canada.
Pastor Tammy Klassen with the Mill Bay Baptist Fellowship says it appears he has contracted a strain of the H1N1 flu virus – the most common flu virus that circulates each year.
She says that while it is not the virus that is sweeping China and being transmitted in other parts of the world, it is still a potentially serious illness.
Sowden celebrated his 70th Birthday and by posting a photograph of the nurses in his isolation unit on his Facebook Page.
Friends and family in the Cowichan Valley are offering best wishes and prayers for his speedy recovery.
