New coronary pneumonia patients with mild initial viral load are higher
Science and Technology Daily News (Reporter Liu Haiying) It is generally believed that after being infected with a virus, the higher the viral load of the diagnostic test, the more serious the illness. However, a retrospective study by New York University found that in patients with new coronary pneumonia, the initial viral load of mild patients is significantly higher than that of severe patients who require hospitalization. Researchers recently published a research report in the American Journal of Pathology, which pointed out that patients with mild new pneumonia at the early stage of the disease are easy-to-neglect infection control groups and need more attention.
This retrospective study was designed to determine the relationship between initial viral load, symptoms and prognosis in patients with new coronavirus positives. The researchers surveyed 205 patients with new coronary pneumonia who were seen in the emergency room of the New York City Tertiary Medical Center. Among these patients, 165 had mild symptoms and were not hospitalized, and another 40 were hospitalized because of the severe symptoms. The researchers found that patients who were not hospitalized had a much higher initial viral load compared to those who were hospitalized. After excluding the influence of a series of factors such as age, gender, race, body mass index and comorbidity, this is still the case.
Further research shows that the patient’s initial viral load is not significantly correlated with clinical results (including length of hospital stay, whether a ventilator is required, survival time, etc.), but is significantly negatively correlated with the duration of symptoms. The higher the viral load, The shorter the duration of the patient's symptoms. This means that patients with mild new coronary pneumonia in the early stages of the disease have a higher risk of virus shedding. The researchers pointed out that the risk of virus shedding is an important consideration for the new coronavirus control strategy. The high risk of virus shedding in mild patients means that they are an important source of infection and are an infection control population that is neglected in the actual epidemic prevention and control strategy. .
The researchers said that although their research shows that initial viral load does not seem to have any effect on predicting prognosis, it can be used as an important alternative epidemiological marker of infectivity. Hospitals can use viral load indicators to identify viruses with high infectiousness. Patients, take more targeted protective measures.