According to a study, most coronavirus patients have diarrhea, loss of appetite and vomiting
Cough, fever and shortness of breath are the symptoms associated with Coronavirus , however an investigation showed that there is one that most infected patients present and it has nothing to do with the previous ones.
Digestive problems could be more common than you think in coronavirus infections. In fact, the symptoms that some coronavirus patients present and have nothing to do with fever and cough, are diarrhea and loss of appetite, according to a study.
This investigation revealed that these conditions were the "main complaint" in almost half of the more than 200 cases confirmed by Covid-19.
That study suggested that, during the coronavirus pandemic, doctors may need to look beyond the main symptoms of Covid-19 identified by health officials in the United States: fever, cough and shortness of breath.
This could be because many patients infected with coronavirus, according to the study, may initially present in hospital with diarrhea, anorexia and vomiting, not necessarily respiratory.
In fact some researchers excluded anorexia, a loss of appetite or aversion to food, they found that 1 in 5 coronavirus patients continued to come to the hospital with diarrhea, vomiting or abdominal pain.
In the most severe cases of coronavirus, digestive symptoms also became more frequent and patients with digestive problems were less likely to be discharged, according to the research.
The study, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, looked at 204 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Hubei province, China. A small number of those patients, seven people, had digestive problems but no respiratory symptoms.
The researchers cautioned that larger studies will be needed to confirm their findings.
If clinicians only monitor respiratory symptoms to establish case definitions for Covid-19, they may miss cases that initially present with extrapulmonary symptoms or the disease may go undiagnosed later until respiratory symptoms emerge.