COVID-19 with abdominal symptoms and acute abdominal pain: a guide to identification for general practice

INTRODUCTION

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, previously known as 2019 new coronavirus [2019-nCoV]) appeared in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and spread rapidly throughout China and other countries.¹ As of 29 March 2020, SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in a total of 634 835 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19, previously known as novel coronavirus pneumonia [NCP]) worldwide, of which 29 957 patients have died.² SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has caused more deaths than SARS-CoV (774 deaths worldwide) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV (858 deaths worldwide), and has become the deadliest coronavirus ever.³

Several retrospective single-centre case series showed that the most common symptoms of the disease were fever, fatigue, cough, myalgia, and dyspnoea.^4–6 It is worth noting that a considerable number of patients have gastrointestinal and abdominal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea.^4–7 Wang et al⁴ reported that, among 138 patients, 10.1% of patients initially presented with diarrhoea and nausea. In addition, in this report, one patient was admitted to the surgical ward because of abdominal symptoms and …