New symptoms delay Covid care
Diarrhoea, vomiting, headache found in patients
● THE COMMON symptoms of cough, cold, fever and breathlessness is not being noted in all the patients like it was earlier.
● THESE NEW symptoms are being seen from June 15 onwards and government doctors say this has created confusion.
● DOCTORS FIND that the virus is changing its genomic structure according to the season and ensuring its survival and proliferation in the human body.
Doctors are seeing new symptoms in recent cases of Covid-19, like severe diarrhoea, vomiting, and headaches. This is delaying diagnosis and treatment, say doctors at Chest and King Koti hospitals.
The common symptoms of cough, cold, fever and breathlessness is not being noted in all the patients like it was earlier. These new symptoms are being seen from June 15 onwards and government doctors say this has created confusion. Tests were done only for those who had symptoms of cough, high fever and breathlessness. But now these new presentations demand that these cases must also be tested.
A senior government doctor explained, “These cases are presented as caused due to food poisoning and seasonal change leading to stomach upset. But it is the virus which is attacking the gastro-intestinal track first instead of the lungs. It is presenting in the form of severe diarrhoea and vomiting leading to dehydration. This in turn is leading to weakness, lower oxygen levels, low BP, low sugar and sudden collapse. There are some patients for whom vomiting does not stop for two to three days and that ne-eds hospital management. This is now a new presentation of the virus.” Cases in government hospitals are confirmed for Covid-19 after 24 hours, but managing these gastro-intestinal infections requires stabilising patients first.
Doctors find that the virus is changing its genomic structure according to the season and ensuring its survival and proliferation in the human body.
A senior government doctor at Chest Hospital explained, “In the month of March, April and May, our concentration was on respiratory distress as that was the presentation. There were cases noted with scarring in the lungs. Lung scarring is noted now too, but with these other symptoms. These changes mean that the virus has changed its strategy. It also indicates that SARS Cov 2 is mutating with the changing season.”
The worry for doctors is that people who have stomach upsets are not going to suspect Covid-19 as this has not been seen as a symptom of the disease. One just needs to be aware of this and not to panic, doctors say.
There were 62 Covid deaths from June 20 to June 30.
Of these, 30 deaths have been in a matter of hours after admission and they symptoms in these cases were not the regular ones, which has alerted them to these new symptoms, doctors say.