Editorial

Fever in coronavirus infection may come after admission

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More than 50% of coronavirus patients admitted into hospitals had no fever, and several had no abnormal radiologic findings, suggests new research.

A paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggested that only 43.8% of patients had fever on admission, and the number rose to 88.7% during hospitalization. Investigators studied 1,099 novel coronavirus patients across 552 hospitals in 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. Data were obtained starting January 29, 2020.

Cough (noted in 67.8% patients) was among the most common symptoms besides fever, and diarrhea was uncommon (3.8%).

Researchers noted lymphocytopenia in 83.2% of the patients at the time of admission. There was no radiographic or CT abnormality in 157 of the 877 patients (17.9%) with mild symptoms and in 5 out of 173 patients (2.9%) with severe disease.

The median age of the patients was 47 years, and 41.9% were female. Median incubation period was 4 days; however, the virus was found to have incubated for 24 days in one case.

The mortality rate was 1.4%. Of note, only 1.9% of the patients had any direct contact with wildlife. Among people not residing in Wuhan, 72.3% reportedly had had contact with Wuhan people, including 31.3% who had visited the city.

(Excerpts from China Daily)

Dr KK Aggarwal

President CMAAO, HCFI and Past National President IMA