New research has acquired the most likely sequence in which COVID-19 symptoms first appear.
The first sign of the coronavirus is likely to be a fever in infected patients, followed by a cough and muscle ache, according to the study conducted by the University of Southern California published in the Frontiers in Journal Public.
People will then experience nausea like vomiting and diarrhea.
The latest findings are a major breakthrough in studying the coronavirus, as patients can now quickly identify and treat the disease.
“This sequence is especially important to know if we have overlapping cycles of diseases such as the flu that coincide with COVID-19 infections,” said Peter Kuhn, a professor of biological sciences and medicine who worked on the study. in a statement. “Physicians can determine what steps to take to care for the patient, and they can prevent the patient’s condition from deteriorating.”
Setting up a diagnosis early is the key to stopping the virus before it becomes more serious.
“Given that there are now better approaches to COVID-19 treatments, patients can identify hospital admission time sooner,” said Joseph Larsen, a doctoral candidate and lead researcher on the study. ‘The order of the symptoms matters. Knowing that each disease progresses differently means that doctors can identify earlier if one is likely to have COVID-19, or another disease, which can help them make better treatment decisions. “
The initial symptoms of coronavirus are very similar to other respiratory diseases such as MERS and SARS, but it is the timing of gastrointestinal problems that makes COVID-19 easier to single out.
“The upper GI tract (i.e., nausea / vomiting) appears to be affected before the lower GI tract (i.e., diarrhea) in COVID-19, which is the opposite of MERS and SARS,” the scientists wrote in the study.
Larsen, along with faculty advisors Kuhn and James Hicks, conducted the study at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience’s Convergent Science Institute in Cancer.
The USC researchers analyzed data collected by the World Heath Organization in China between February 16 and 24 from more than 55,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus. The scientists also looked at nearly 1,100 cases collected from December 11 to January 29 by the China Medical Treatment expert group through the National Health Commission of China.
They then compared the figures with influenza symptom data from 2,470 cases in North America, Europe and the southern hemisphere that were reported to health authorities from 1994 to 1998.
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