Jakarta, CNN Indonesia –
Researchers at the University of Southern California say they have found a sequence of symptoms COVID-19 the latest. This discovery is claimed to help enable earlier detection and treatment for many patients.
“This is kind of a good guide,” said Dr. Bob Lahita, a professor of medicine who was not associated with the study, was quoted from CBS News.
“We can safely say, studying like they do, I think it’s 55,000 patients from China, they look at the data and look at the symptoms and find that this sequence is quite reproducible.”
According to research published in the medical journal Frontier Public Health, the most likely sequence of symptoms is as follows: fever, then cough and muscle aches, followed by nausea and / or vomiting, and then diarrhea.
“Fever is number one, followed by cough, followed by aches and pains – and not all of them have to appear in sequence, they can occur together,” said Lahita of the first grouping of symptoms. After that, he said, nausea and vomiting appeared, followed by diarrhea.
However, not all patients experience the same symptoms. But the new findings help underline how COVID-19 differs from other well-known diseases. While fever and cough have also been linked to a number of other illnesses, such as the flu, research notes that it is the timing of these symptoms, and subsequent gastrointestinal symptoms, that differentiate these viruses.
In a press release about the study, USC scientist Peter Kuhn said that understanding the sequence of viral symptoms is useful during “overlapping disease cycles” such as the upcoming flu season.
“It is important to have this information,” said Lahita. “Apart from the things we all talk about like loss of smell and loss of taste, again – fever, cough, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting and then diarrhea are very good indicators of the fact that you may have COVID-19.”
(chs)
–
