Coronavirus advice issued by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre in Ireland has warned doctors and nurses to be alert about symptoms different from a fever, cough and shortness of breath. The advice comes as health staff in nursing homes are being told symptoms of the COVID-19 virus are being missed.

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Instead of displaying the routine signs, Dublin Live reports older residents are suffering from confusion, loss of appetite, rapid deterioration of their health condition between checks and lethargy.

Coronavirus has been linked to a variety of different symptoms over the last few months.

A study carried out by Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan have warned of two new mild symptoms to look out for – a headache and dizziness.

Researchers from the university analysed 214 coronavirus patients, asking them about their initial symptoms.

The results found 36 percent experience some form of neurological symptom, including headache and dizziness.

Muscle inflammation and nerve pain were also cited amongst some patients.

In some cases, the symptoms were described alongside respiratory symptoms, including a cough and fever.

In other cases, patients only experienced neurological symptoms.

The study was published in JAMA Neurology. Lead researcher Ling Mao wrote: “Some patients without typical symptoms (fever, cough, anorexia and diarrhoea) of COVID-19 came to the hospital with only neuralgic manifestation as their presenting symptoms.

“Therefore, for patients with COVID-19, we need to pay close attention to their neurotic manifestations, especially for those with severe infections, which may have contributed to their death.

“Moreover, during the epidemic period of COVID-19, when seeing patients with these neurologic manifestations, physicians should consider SARS-CoV-2 infection as a differential diagnosis to avoid delayed diagnosis or misdiagnosis and prevention of transmission.”

Researchers from Harvard Medical School have linked loss of smell to coronavirus

As part of their study involving human and mice genomic data they found certain cells at the back of the nose harbour the distinctly shaped proteins that coronavirus targets to invade the body.

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The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) reported coronavirus “can cause a mild follicular conjunctivitis otherwise indistinguishable from other viral causes”.

Diarrhoea has also been linked to coronavirus – a study of 204 patients in Wuhan, China, where the COVID-19 outbreak is believed to have started, found 99 patients (48.5 percent) went to hospital with digestive issues, such as diarrhoea, as their main ailment.

The majority of these people did not have underlying digestive conditions.

Diarrhoea (29 percent) were the main symptoms for patients with digestive problems.

An analysis of more than 200 COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China linked stomach pain to coronavirus.

While it wasn’t a common symptom reported by the patients, scientists working on the study warned it may be linked to the virus, as well as a number of other digestive symptoms.

They added people that develop gastrointestinal symptoms were also likely to experience coronavirus for longer than those with respiratory symptoms.

A total of 18 patients, out of 206, reported stomach pain as one of their symptoms.

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