Some Covid-19 Patients May Show Only Digestive Disorder as Studies Warn of Oral-faecal Transmission

For a disease which is widely believed to infect respiratory organs, a pooled study on Covid-19 research over three months shows that one out of every 10 patients may develop only gastrointestinal (GI) disorder on being exposed to the virus.

The findings are based on a paper co-authored by 6 doctors from China. Published by Lancet, the paper meta-analysed data from 35 studies on 6,500 patients over three months beginning first week of January.

The paper further reports that overall, 15% of patients showed GI symptoms while in 19% od the cases the virus also inflicted injury to the liver.

“About 10% of patients presented with gastrointestinal symptoms alone without respiratory features; these patients have delayed diagnosis of COVID-19. Patients with gastrointestinal symptoms have increased risk of severe or critical disease, and development of acute respiratory distress syndrome.”; the research says.

The injury to the digestive system was found to be more pronounced in patients showing severe clinical symptoms.

Digestive disorder in Covid-19 patients was manifested through a loss of appetite, diarrhoea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.

Another paper by two GI experts from Wuhan – the epicentre of the disease in China – has warned of oral-faecal transmission of the Covid-19 virus.

The study revealed that the respiratory organs of the patient showed the presence of virus for an average of 16 to 17 days. While the faecal samples were positive for almost 28 days. In one patient, the test turned positive after 47 days since the onset of symptoms.

Culturable virus in faeces for up to 30 days in some cases indicates the presence of pathogen in the intestines long after respiratory organs have been cleared of it.

At the Stanford Medical centre in the US, an analysis of manifestation of symptoms in 116 patients confirms the reports of GI disorder in Covid-19 patients. Almost 32% of the patients examined showed digestive disorder while 41% displayed elevated “level of liver enzymes.”

All patients in this study, however, developed respiratory symptoms before the manifestation of gastro disorder. And no patient had GI disorder before respiratory symptoms were evident.

“However, that may be a product of who we were testing. Currently, testing is only offered for patients that meet specific criteria – criteria that often requires the presence of pulmonary symptoms," one of the researchers clarified later.