Stay Alert: Doctors Observe Rashes, Backache & Nausea As New Symptoms Of COVID-19

It has been over half a year since coronavirus brought the world to a screeching halt. The virus shows no signs of abating and apart from drastically changing our lives, the novel coronavirus has also been changing its warning signs with time. It was on Monday that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the national public health institute in the United States, added three more symptoms of COVID-19 to its list. The new symptoms include nausea, congestion or runny nose, and diarrhoea as indicators of the infection.

In fact, if you were to see the trends in India itself, fever, cough, and cold are certainly not the only signs of COVID-19 anymore, something that was being suggested at the very onset of the pandemic. As per media reports, doctors treating COVID-19 patients in Mumbai have been noticing abdominal pain, backache, rashes, aching calves, and diarrhoea as new indicators of the infection. In fact, reportedly, the doctors are saying that diarrhoea can be a more common symptom. To add to it, blood sugar levels as high as 400-plus dl(decilitres)/gm have been observed in patients with no history of diabetes. 

Dr. Shashank Joshi, a member of the state government task force for COVID-19 mitigation shared in a recent media statement, “Doctors are seeing patients with uncommon symptoms such as body ache; some have no complaint apart from pain around the knees and below.” 

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It is, in fact, alarming to notice how the coronavirus has started changing the way it has been impacting people. The new symptoms along with the mutation claims are certainly not good news. Now, as some of the biggest pharma companies and scientists in the world strive to come up with a COVID-19 vaccine, the capacity of a vaccine to completely eliminate the virus remains highly debated owing to studies claiming it’s mutating nature. 

Evert since the instances of community spread of the novel coronavirus in countries other than China, scientists have been tracking its nature with a lot of them expressing concerns over its mutations. Many of them claim that the strain of coronavirus present in certain countries is genetically different from the one that first started spreading in China. A recent study published in bioRxiv posits that the mutations, in fact, exist and some of them are making the spike protein present in the coronavirus stronger, which makes it even more infectious. 

Well, none of this is good news for everyone desperately awaiting a vaccine and getting rid of the fatal virus. Here’s hoping that we find a way out soon!

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