New research into data from more than 200 people who received medical care for COVID-19 reveals that almost half of this group experienced digestive symptoms, such as loss of appetite and diarrhea.
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As the world races to find the best ways to cope with the new coronavirus, researchers continue to contribute to our understanding of COVID-19, the disease that the virus causes.
The exact symptoms are a main point of interest. As with many other viral infections, SARS-CoV-2 infections cause different symptoms in different people.
But which symptoms are the most common, and which others are still likely to affect a significant number of people?
According to information from the World Health Organization (WHO), three of the most common symptoms are a fever, coughing, and some difficulty breathing.
However, people with COVID-19 have reported many other symptoms, including digestive ones.
While the WHO still consider digestive symptoms to be uncommon, a new study from the Wuhan Medical Treatment Expert Group for COVID-19 suggests that such symptoms may be more widespread than specialists had thought.
The expert group behind this new study — the findings of which appear in The American Journal of Gastroenterology — analyzed data from 204 people who received medical care for COVID-19 between January 18 and February 28, 2020.
The patients had an average age of 54.9 years, and of the total, 107 were male a