National

ETV Bharat / sukhibhava

Nausea, loss of appetite may be new symptoms of Omicron

While the Omicron variant is considered to be "mild", the new symptoms include nausea and loss of appetite, according to a Zoe Covid app study.

By

Published : Jan 3, 2022, 3:53 PM IST

Nausea loss of appetite may be new symptoms of Omicron, covid study, variant of concern omicron, covid19 omicron symptoms, can omicron cause severe infection
Nausea, loss of appetite may be new symptoms of Omicron

According to the UK's National Health Service (NHS), the symptoms of coronavirus generally include "a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, or a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste", the Daily Express reported.

However, some people have had nausea and a loss of appetite - symptoms that are not usually associated with Covid.

According to Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London, these are common symptoms in those who tend to be double-jabbed or even boosted. "Quite a few of them had nausea, slight temperature, sore throats and headaches," he was quoted as saying.

The four most common symptoms of the omicron variant are cough, fatigue, congestion and runny nose, according to a CDC analysis of the first 43 cases investigated in the US. In some cases, vomiting has also been reported as a symptom among those with the variant, the report said.

Recent preliminary studies have stated that Omicronappears to be "milder" than the Delta variant wave. People infected are between 40 and 70 percent less likely to be admitted to hospitals.

Research from an Imperial College London study and Scottish paper Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of Covid-19, states that people with Omicron are 15 to 20 percent less likely to need hospital treatment.

They are 40 to 45 percent less likely to require an overnight stay in hospital. A series of recently published studies found that the fast-moving Omicron variant may be less severe than other Covid strains because of the way it attacks the lungs, media reports say.

Besides this, talking about omicron causing only mild infection, according to The New York Times, studies on mice and hamsters have found that Omicron produced less damaging infections to the lungs, and instead was limited largely to the nose, throat, and windpipe. Previous variantswould cause scarring in the lungs and serious breathing difficulty, quoting NYT, The Times of Israel reported.

"It is fair to say that the idea of a disease that manifests itself primarily in the upper respiratory system is emerging," Roland Eils, a computational biologist at the Berlin Institute of Health who has studied how coronaviruses infect the airway was quoted as saying.

One of the studies found that the Omicron levels in the lungs were one-tenth or less of the level of other variants, the report said. Several experiments published in recent days all pointed to the conclusion that Omicron is milder than Delta and other earlier versions of the virus, in line with real-world data, it added. The studies were posted online in preprint form, meaning they have yet to be reviewed by other scientists and be published in scientific journals.

(IANS)

Also Read:Boosters raise vax effectiveness against Omicron by 88%: UK studies

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

...view details