The list of covid symptoms may need updating. The omikron variant, for example, seems to mainly cause headaches and severe fatigue, while the previously known corona symptoms such as loss of smell and taste and a strong cough occur less. writes about it de Volkskrant.
This is apparent from research into the first omikron patients in South Africa, the country where the variant was discovered. The first results from the United Kingdom, where the variant is widely circulated, show the same. Headaches and fatigue (mild or severe) are among the five most common symptoms reported by omikron-infected Londoners, according to research from King’s College London. Norwegian research among more than eighty omikron patients also shows this. Fatigue and headaches are in third and fifth place respectively.
In February last year, British researchers already called for testing for corona for complaints such as headache and fatigue. But now that the omikron variant is dominant in many countries, this appeal seems even more urgent.
Nevertheless, in the Netherlands these complaints are still under the heading “less common”. It is worth considering adjusting this, says the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), but not yet. “If headache and fatigue turn out to be important complaints for omikron, we will look again. But we don’t see enough signals for that at the moment,” a spokesperson told the newspaper.
‘You have to set practical criteria’
“We call this a case definition. The professors are now about to decide what is and what is not going around with this variant,” says GGD doctor Ashis Brahma about it in Good Morning Netherlands on NPO 1. “You see that omikron is now the most common variant in the Netherlands, and that has a different presentation. It is said that because it attaches higher in the airways, it may also cause other symptoms.”
The question is whether such an adjustment will not lead to the test streets of the GGD being flooded with people who, so to speak, have themselves tested for every headache. “You have to set practical criteria,” Brahma says. “It would be nice if everyone had the same complaints, but that is not the case. You assume that you will be tested for a certain number of combinations of factors and symptoms. That needs to be communicated clearly.”
By: Marinka Wagemans
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