On August 13, the scientific journal ‘Frontiers in Public Health’ published the results of an American study carried out by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC). The aim of the study? Identify the order of appearance of symptoms of Covid-19 in the majority of patients. Enough to allow a better distinction between Covid-19 and other infectious diseases …
Study reveals order of symptoms
In order to define the order of appearance of symptoms of Covid-19, researchers at USC, with the help of the World Health Organization, analyzed the data of more than 56,000 people affected by the disease. Covid-19 in China.
To achieve this, scientists compared the symptoms of the Coronavirus to 2,500 cases of influenza (declared by European and American health authorities from 1994 to 1998) as well as to the two main coronavirus diseases: SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and the Seas (Middle East respiratory syndrome). The researchers focused on the more objective symptoms and chose to exclude the more subjective.
Published on August 13 in the journal Science Dail, the results of the study thus declare the order of appearance of symptoms of Covid-19. Although this is the likely chronological order of symptoms, scientists insist that symptoms can vary from person to person and asymptomatic patients should not be excluded.
Differentiate between symptoms of Covid-19 and the flu
All the results and medical data of the study are intended, according to the researchers, to help health professionals to diagnose and identify Covid-19 more quickly and thus to treat affected patients more easily. Indeed, in view of the common symptoms, it is difficult to distinguish those of Covid-19 from those of influenza and other respiratory diseases. To put it simply, here is the order of appearance of symptoms of Covid-19 compared to those of influenza according to the results of the study.
For Covid-19, we note in order, the appearance of:
- fever, cough, muscle pain, headache and throat pain, nausea and / or vomiting and diarrhea.
In the case of influenza, the onset of symptoms is in this order:
- cough, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
