No sign of Rotavirus co-infection in COVID-19 patients with gastrointestinal symptoms

Milad Zandi; Saber Soltani; Riam Sadooni; Shokrollah Salmanzadeh; Yousef Erfani; Ramin Shahbahrami; Maghsud Piri; Reza Pakzad; Nasrin Ghodratifard; Alireza Eftekhari Moghadam; Samaneh Abbasi

doi:10.4314/mmj.v35i1.6

No sign of Rotavirus co-infection in COVID-19 patients with gastrointestinal symptoms

Malawi Med J. 2023 Mar;35(1):27-30. doi: 10.4314/mmj.v35i1.6.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Virology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
² Abadan University of Medical Sciences, Abadan, Iran.
³ Infectious and tropical diseases research center, Health research institute, Faculty of medicine, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran.
⁴ Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁵ Department of Epidemiology, Faculty of Health, Ilam University Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran.
⁶ Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Abadan University of Medical sciences, Abadan, Iran.

Abstract

Background and aims: The main goal of the present study is to investigate the incidence of Rotavirus co-infection in COVID-19 patients.

Methods and results: Fecal samples of COVID-19 patients with gastrointestinal symptoms which had positive PCR- were collected from Abadan's hospital, Iran during the period December 2020 to January 2021. Samples were analyzed by RT-PCR to determine the presence of Rotavirus. Finally, the total samples size of 37 were included in this study. The mean age of patients was 48.22 years. Abdominal pain alone was detected in 48.65% of the patients. At least one gastrointestinal symptom was detected in all of the patients. Diarrhea and fever were seen in 13.51% and 59.46% of patients, respectively. Nausea and vomiting were seen in 5.41% of the patients. RT-PCR showed no infection of Rotavirus among the patients.

Conclusion: Gastrointestinal symptoms related to COVID-19 are common. More studies is need among these patients groups for investigate co-infection with other fecal viral shedding carries, due to a worse prognosis and its association with disease severity.

Keywords: COVID-19; Gastrointestinal symptoms; Rotavirus; SARS-CoV-2.

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / diagnosis
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Coinfection* / epidemiology
Gastrointestinal Diseases* / epidemiology
Humans
Middle Aged
Rotavirus Infections* / complications
Rotavirus Infections* / diagnosis
Rotavirus Infections* / epidemiology
Rotavirus* / genetics
SARS-CoV-2