New Delhi: The classic symptoms of COVID-19, like cough, runny nose, high fever or sore threat are missing in Omicron patients. The main complaints are severe headache, body pain, exhaustion, mild temperature and a slightly scratchy throat.
Dr Angelique Coetzee, who has physically seen over 100 Covid positive patients in South Africa infected with the new variant, told News18.com that “Omicron will give a totally different clinical picture that has no flu-like symptoms.”
Patients who are unvaccinated can have severe headache and body pain. However, it is manageable at home with commonly used medicines.
Dr Coetzee, who is also the Chairperson of the South African Medical Association, an association for public and private sector health practitioners, said “a clinician would be able to judge that the patient is not acutely ill.”
“Place a high suspicion if symptoms such as body pain, headache, fatigue are mentioned. It may not be a normal flu but Omicron. Ask them to test for Covid-19,” she said.
While her patients have been responding well to the drugs such as ibuprofen and are recovering within five to seven days, she believes that “more data is required to confirm the behaviour of Omicron.”
Dr Coetzee, who has been a clinical physician for over three decades, recalled that she and her other medical colleagues had not seen COVID-19 cases for nearly four to eight weeks, the report added.
“Then people started coming with different symptoms. We immediately knew it was not the Delta variant… they were not its symptoms.”
