The early signs of Coronavirus disease are dry cough, high fever, and flu-like symptoms. This is what most health experts advised all countries experiencing the deadly and contagious respiratory disease in order for them to contain its spread. However, a new study is now being circulated, saying that there was actually an earlier sign of Coronavirus that most Wuhan patients experienced first, before having flu-like symptoms. And that is stomach ache or stomach pains.
Study: Here's the first thing you'll feel if you have Coronavirus, and It's not flu!
Contrary to what most people and health experts believed in, stomach ache or stomach pains are the earliest signs of having Coronavirus disease. This is what the United States scientists revealed in their published study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
According to them, before COVID-19 patients experienced flu-like symptoms, they first felt pain in their stomach areas such as diarrhea, vomiting, or abdominal pain. Out of the 204 positive cases of COVID-19 in Hubei, China, almost half of them experienced digestive problems when they arrived in the hospitals.
The researchers also identified that some cases even get problematic digestive symptoms before they get to experience any respiratory diseases.
"In this study, Covid-19 patients with digestive symptoms have a worse clinical outcome and a higher risk of mortality compared to those without digestive symptoms, emphasizing the importance of including symptoms like diarrhea to suspect Covid-19 early in the disease course before respiratory symptoms develop," said Brennan M.R. Spiegel, co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
Not all cases experience stomach pains; some experience nothing at all
Though experts already claimed that stomach ache might be the early signs of a positive COVID-19 patient, the doctors still acknowledge that not all patients with viral disease have the same symptoms with stomach pains.
High temperature and dry coughs are still the early official symptoms of the virus, and it must not be overlooked just because a patient does not experience any stomach pains.
Meanwhile, health experts also clarified that not all positive virus carriers have symptoms. In fact, studies "found that the stability of SARS-CoV-2 was similar to that of SARS-CoV-1 under the experimental circumstances tested," the study states. "This indicates that differences in the epidemiologic characteristics of these viruses probably arise from other factors, including high viral loads in the upper respiratory tract and the potential for persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 to shed and transmit the virus while asymptomatic."
Older people and even people that have precondition diseases are more prone to catching the disease. This is the reason why the transmission of the virus can be quite tricky for most health experts around the world, as some cases have no symptoms at all.
Still, authorities advised to regularly wash hands, stay away from the crowds, and protect the immune system to prevent getting the disease.
