Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. At the start of the pandemic, gastrointestinal symptoms initially described as rare were reported, but their spread to other countries increased rapidly.
This study aimed to determine the prevalence of digestive symptoms among COVID patients and to assess the correlation between these symptoms and disease severity. This retrospective observational study was conducted in the Cheikh Khalifa University Hospital of Casablanca, Morocco. Patients were divided into two groups based on the presence or absence of gastrointestinal symptoms upon initial assessment and hospital admission. A total of patients were included in this study from March 21 to April 26, The mean age of patients was about In our population, 8.
We found a significant difference in COVID patients with digestive symptoms and toxic habits contrary to all other comorbidities. In this study, we found that digestive symptoms were present in The clinician must know the different digestive symptoms to evoke the diagnosis and take charge of the patient early.
Keywords: digestive symptoms, severe covid, covid, gastro-intestinal, sars-cov In Morocco, the first case of this disease was declared on March 2, , and the first death on March 11, This virus is transmitted through respiratory droplets or close contact with an infected individual.
Still, no study in Morocco has been carried out about digestive symptoms and COVID in our context according to our knowledge. The symptoms induced by this virus are mainly characterized by respiratory symptoms [ 1 ]. However, gastrointestinal symptoms have also been reported and seem to have an important part in the process. It has been shown to be highly expressed in the digestive system, particularly in the upper esophagus and epithelial cells and in the absorptive enterocytes of the ileum and colon [ 3 ].
