HYDERABAD: Amid a scientific debate whether the novel coronavirus had entered India from China during November-December 2019, a few ENT specialists and general physicians claim that they had come across several patients with symptoms of dry cough and unusual throat infections before the first official Covid-19 case was detected in Kerala on January 30, 2020.
They point out that the unusual symptoms among common ENT patients were never seen earlier. An ENT doctor, who collected information from other physicians through Google forms, told STOI that the pandemic virus may have infected people long before Covid-19 cases were officially identified. Senior ENT specialist Dr Jagdish Chaturvedi, who has invented 18 medical devices, said he had noticed a peak in cases with symptoms similar to that of Covid-19 in the last quarter of 2019.
“Every second patient had severe throat pain, dry cough that lasted for weeks, fever, tiredness, and breathlessness. We are used to noticing patterns of these viral infections which come in bursts. But, between the last week of November 2019 and last week of January 2020, when coronavirus awareness was very limited, other doctors and I had noticed a very bad strain of viral upper respiratory tract infection (URTI),” he said.
Dr Suneel Dhand, co-founder of DocsDox, told STOI that a couple of weeks before people know about Covid-19 or testing facility was available, he had symptoms of dry cough and sore throat. “The cough was weird and persistent and there was not a drop of phlegm. It never happened to me before. Most of us who work in medicine have come to the realisation that this virus has been spreading like a wildfire since December 2019 all over the world. Lots of our patients likely had it and we just didn’t know,” he said.
Dr Ajay Mishra, senior general physician, said he suspected that the coronavirus was present in Delhi prior to January 30. “Unusual in practice a large number of patients were seen in January, February and till March 2020 with fever, dry cough, cold and or laboured breathing. It was very difficult to treat, and suffering continued for longer periods. Loss of taste and smell along with intense lethargy was the main clinical features seen in these patients,” he said.
Recently, city researchers have estimated the time to the most recent common ancestor of different viral strains now present in India to November-December 2019 for the Wuhan ancestor and February-March 2020 to the strain (cluster) from southeast Asia, probably Singapore.
They point out that the unusual symptoms among common ENT patients were never seen earlier. An ENT doctor, who collected information from other physicians through Google forms, told STOI that the pandemic virus may have infected people long before Covid-19 cases were officially identified. Senior ENT specialist Dr Jagdish Chaturvedi, who has invented 18 medical devices, said he had noticed a peak in cases with symptoms similar to that of Covid-19 in the last quarter of 2019.
“Every second patient had severe throat pain, dry cough that lasted for weeks, fever, tiredness, and breathlessness. We are used to noticing patterns of these viral infections which come in bursts. But, between the last week of November 2019 and last week of January 2020, when coronavirus awareness was very limited, other doctors and I had noticed a very bad strain of viral upper respiratory tract infection (URTI),” he said.
Dr Suneel Dhand, co-founder of DocsDox, told STOI that a couple of weeks before people know about Covid-19 or testing facility was available, he had symptoms of dry cough and sore throat. “The cough was weird and persistent and there was not a drop of phlegm. It never happened to me before. Most of us who work in medicine have come to the realisation that this virus has been spreading like a wildfire since December 2019 all over the world. Lots of our patients likely had it and we just didn’t know,” he said.
Dr Ajay Mishra, senior general physician, said he suspected that the coronavirus was present in Delhi prior to January 30. “Unusual in practice a large number of patients were seen in January, February and till March 2020 with fever, dry cough, cold and or laboured breathing. It was very difficult to treat, and suffering continued for longer periods. Loss of taste and smell along with intense lethargy was the main clinical features seen in these patients,” he said.
Recently, city researchers have estimated the time to the most recent common ancestor of different viral strains now present in India to November-December 2019 for the Wuhan ancestor and February-March 2020 to the strain (cluster) from southeast Asia, probably Singapore.
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