MAJOR findings from a study conducted by a scientific research team of the Faculty of Medicine at the Macau University of Science and Technology have just been published in international biomedical journal Nature Medicine, the university announced in a press statement.
Led by Professor Zhang Kang, the study was titled “Characteristics of pediatric SARS-CoV-2 infection and potential evidence for persistent fecal viral shedding.”
As cited in a press release, dean of the faculty, Manson Fok said the team found that overall symptoms in children infected with Covid-19 are less severe than those in adults.
“They do not have the high fever that is common in adults. The clinical manifestations such as cough and fatigue, and obvious pneumonia, are largely absent in children. The lung X-rays and laboratory study also have less abnormal values,” said Fok. “SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid can be detected in [the] gastrointestinal tract (fecal), and its positive duration is longer and amount higher than that in the respiratory track; hence the possibility of fecal-oral transmission is high,” he added.
Thus, the study suggested that rectal swab-testing may be more useful than oropharyngeal-swabs in diagnosis. Professor Zhang Kang’s team is working on several studies on COVID-19 in several interdisciplinary fields, with more advances to be released shortly, the university said. LV
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