Coronavirus carriers could lose their sense of smell and taste, British doctors say
Patients who have no obvious symptoms of coronavirus but lose their ability to taste and smell could be unwitting carriers of COVID-19, according to an association of British ear, nose and throat doctors.
In a letter posted over the weekend, ENT UK warned doctors that evidence from China, Italy and South Korea show that “significant numbers” of people who tested positive for the virus lost the ability to smell, a condition called anosmia.
“These patients may be some of the hitherto hidden carriers that have facilitated the rapid spread of COVID-19,” the association said. “Unfortunately, these patients do not meet current criteria for testing or self-isolation.”
More common early symptoms of a coronavirus infection include a fever, cough and shortness of breath, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Losing the sense of smell does not trigger testing and quarantine recommendations for patients, the association said. “We might be able to reduce the number of otherwise asymptomatic individuals who continue to act as vectors, not realising the need to self-isolate.”
Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert, who tested positive for the disease, said on Twitter Sunday, “Just to give you guys an update, loss of smell and taste is definitely one of the symptoms, haven’t been able to smell anything for the last 4 days.”
More than two thirds of confirmed COVID-19 patients in Germany have what’s also referred to as “smell blindness,” according to the British group. “In South Korea, where testing has been more widespread, 30% of patients testing positive have had anosmia as their major presenting symptom in otherwise mild cases.”
The letter is from Dr. Claire Hopkins, an ENT surgeon and president of the British Rhinological Society, and Dr. Nirmal Kumar, president of ENT UK.
“In young patients, they do not have any significant symptoms such as the cough and fever, but they may have just the loss of sense of smell and taste, which suggests that these viruses are lodging in the nose,” Kumar said in an interview with Sky News.
“There have been a rapidly growing number of reports of a significant increase in the number of patients presenting with anosmia in the absence of other symptoms – this has been widely shared on medical discussion boards by surgeons from all regions managing a high incidence of cases,” Hopkins and Kumar said in the letter.
“Iran has reported a sudden increase in cases of isolated anosmia, and many colleagues from the US, France and Northern Italy have the same experience. I have personally seen four patients this week, all under 40, and otherwise asymptomatic except for the recent onset of anosmia – I usually see roughly no more than one a month,” they said.
“We really want to raise awareness that this is a sign of infection and that anyone who develops loss of sense of smell should self-isolate,” Hopkins said, according to The New York Times. “It could contribute to slowing transmission and save lives.”
The lost sense of smell and taste could be because the virus is found concentrated in nasal cavities when patients start to develop symptoms, Bloomberg News reports.
“It is these ‘silent carriers’ who may remain undetected by current screening procedures, which may explain why the disease has progressed so rapidly in so many countries,” said Simon Carney, an Australian ear, nose and throat surgeon, according to Bloomberg.
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 8:03 AM with the headline "Coronavirus carriers could lose their sense of smell and taste, British doctors say."
