Upset stomach may be a sign of Coronavirus in children

Ever since the coronavirus pandemic began, the list of symptoms of the disease has only been getting longer. While initially three symptoms – fever, cough, and shortness of breath were reported as the key symptoms of the disease, as time went on, other symptoms such as loss of taste and smell, body aches, headaches, etc were also added to the list.

Another list that has got longer in the same context is that of people who are at high risk of contraction and complications due to the disease. While initially it was reported that children may develop mild symptoms due to the infection, but other complications have also been reported in children.

Children suffering from nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, or other forms of the upset stomach may have the coronavirus, according to researchers from the United Kingdom, BBC News reports.

Adding to both these lists are recent findings. According to a team from Queen’s University, Belfast which has been studying children infected with COVID-19, the symptom of an upset stomach as a sign of infection due to coronavirus may be something to watch out for.

According to the US CDC, diarrhoea has been reported as a possible symptom of COVID-19 in adults, since many patients have reported the same. In the UK, however, recognized symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, cough, and loss of taste and smell.

Researchers from King’s College London used an app to track hundreds of children infected with the coronavirus and found that most of them would frequently skip meals and complain of headaches or exhaustion.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already added nausea, vomiting and diarrhea as possible COVID-19 symptoms, as well as fever, cough, and a loss of smell or taste. Researchers at the Queen’s University Belfast found in a study of about 1,000 children that nearly half of those infected reported having symptoms, with gastrointestinal issues like nausea and abdominal cramps found in 13 of the 68 children who tested positive for coronavirus antibodies.

“We know that, thankfully, most children who get the virus will not be very ill with it — but we still do not know how much children may be spreading it,” said lead researcher Dr. Tom Waterfield.

He noted that if the study had only tested children that had a fever, cough, or a loss of smell or taste, they would have only identified 76% of symptomatic cases. But if they also tested children who had gastrointestinal symptoms, they would have identified 97% of the symptomatic cases.

“We are finding that diarrhea and vomiting is a symptom reported by some children and I think adding it to the list of known symptoms is worth considering,” Waterfield said.