In news: Experts have identified ‘COVID tongue’ as a new Corona Virus symptom, WHO yet to confirm it
What is it?
- An epidemiologist at King’s College London, Professor Tim Spector has found that one of the unusual warning signs of COVID-19 may be developing in the mouth
- He claims to be seeing an increase in the number of COVID patients suffering with uncomfortable symptoms in their mouth, such as coated tongue or ‘COVID tongue’ as he calls it.
- The epidemiologist also claims observing increasing numbers of Covid tongues and strange mouth ulcers in COVID-19 patients.
More about COVID tongue
- Although, fever, fatigue and dry cough are some of the most predominant signs of SARs-COV-02, a rare and ‘strange symptom’ has been established amongst COVID-19 patients in the recent past, which causes infection inside the mouth.
- COVID tongue can cause patches and ulcers all across your mouth. Though the tongue gets back to normal in a week’s time
- ‘COVID tongue’ can cause serious infection inside the mouth and also form patches all over the tongue. This may seem alarming initially, it’s a harmless condition, which will resolve itself in a few days or weeks.
List of of COVID-19 by WHO
- The list of symptoms that the World Health Organization(WHO) publishes has two categories—the common symptoms and the not-so-common symptoms.
- The common symptoms enlisted are fever, dry cough, fatigue Runny and stuffy nose, Chest pain and shortness of breath
- Other symptoms that are not very common, according to WHO categorization, are—loss of taste or smell, nasal congestion, conjunctivitis, sore throat, joint pain or muscle pain, skin rashes, nausea, diarrhea and dizziness or chills.
- Skin rashes: It also included “different types of skin rashes” as a symptom of the disease that is less common.
- The WHO symptom list also has symptoms for severe COVID-19 disease and these include shortness of breath, loss of appetite, confusion, chest pain along with high temperature above 100 degree Fahrenheit.
- According to WHO Symptoms that can be even severe and are related to cognitive abilities are rare neurological complications like stroke, delirium, nerve damage etc.
- Apart from these, irritability, confusion, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, reduced consciousness are also COVID-19 related symptoms in severe cases.