As the months roll by scientists are beginning to understand the workings of the coronavirus more and more. Now new reports from scientists suggest in children the coronavirus symptoms may include nausea, diarrhea, and pains in the stomach.
These symptoms although not listed on the list posted by the NHS are also found usually in adult patients
Officials however do not count them in as tell-tale signs for the disease because they could be misleading and may cause hysteria in the population each time someone experiences an ache in their stomach.
Irish Scientists from the North of the country however strongly believe these should be counted as coronavirus symptoms because they seem to have a direct correlation with how the illness shows up in children.
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The researchers reveal that though coughing is a sure indicator of coronavirus in adults, in children that are not a reliable symptom for whether or not the child has been infected.
Dr. Tom Waterfield from Queen’s University Belfast believes vomiting, as well as diarrhea, are such recurring symptoms that it would not be best that we add them to the list.
His colleagues and Dr. Waterfield took the accounts of 992 children and studied them, 68 among them had the illness and almost all of them were around the age of ten.
If such symptoms were taken into account children could have been more easily diagnosed for coronavirus.
One of the deciding factors for whether or not health experts with considering something an actual symptom is seeing what portion of the population with such a symptom has the illness and comparatively how what portion does not have the illness but experience the symptom.
But some experts now believe that it should be seen whether all people suffering from coronavirus reported this symptom or not.
In a study by the researchers from Northern Ireland, just 34 children out of all participating showed any symptoms of coronavirus.
Using the checklist of official symptoms such as the loss of smell or taste, coughs, and fevers, scientists diagnosed correctly exactly 76% of infected children.
Once taking into account stomach issues as a potential symptom of coronavirus however they discovered that the number increased alarmingly to 97% which meant 33 of the total 34 children were infected by the novel coronavirus.
After realizing that most children either did not have symptoms or had symptoms not commonly known, most of them would go unnoticed and would never be diagnosed with coronavirus.
The authors of the study concluded that the study is evidence that a major portion of the population’s children are asymptomatic if infected and the current diagnostic strategy will not be able to identify the infections that children have.
In the study, 13 children experienced gut or stomach discomfort while 21 children displayed more commonly known symptoms like fevers.
In comparison, 6 children only felt a loss in their ability to taste or smell, this being one of the officially recognized coronavirus symptoms by NHS.
This brings the health care of Britain under fire for making diagnostic definitions for the virus narrower than it is. While the US lists 11 symptoms, the UK still publicly lists only three main symptoms to decide for when seeking a test which may be misleading as the population can go undiagnosed even if they are infected.
