Relationship of Anosmia with Nasopharyngeal Swab-Based Sample Collection for Covid-19
Relationship of Anosmia with Nasopharyngeal Swab-Based Sample Collection for Covid-19
Muneer Ahmed Solangi* and Mahvish Jabeen Channa
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 caused a significant number of infections and deaths since first appearance in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Anosmia and hyposmia had been viewed as the first signs of COVID-19. However, these could also be triggered by preceding factors in the population or those twisted during pandemic. In this prospective cohort study, respondents were surveyed with a subjective smell test to notice the incidence of smell loss after nasopharyngeal sampling. Olfactory function was evaluated multiple times with a non-specific smell test using the balm (Iodex, GSK®) and items accessible to respondents at home. Olfactory function was qualitatively categorized based on the difficulty of smelling odor such as normal (normosomia), diminished (hyposmia), and absent (anosmia). Data about manifestation, comorbidities and smell function is carefully assessed before statistical analysis. The study involved 120 individuals, of which 52 (43.3%) were female and 68 (56.6%) were male. The average age of the participants was 37 ± 15 [min 16, max 72, IQR 46.5-26=21.5]. RT-PCR revealed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in n = 6 (5%), with a mean Ct-value of 30.3 ±2.6. Post-NPS smell loss respondents were n=13(11%) among them n=3(23%) had SAR-CoV-2 while n=10(77%) were negative. Through Chi-square (χ2) test, p-value was revealed ≤0.05 [df 1] for smell loss in negative respondents compared to positive cases which shows that they might have lost smell due to different factors other than COVID-19 which are briefly discussed.
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