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Objectives
The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of the main symptoms in Brazilian COVID-19 patients hospitalized during 4 distinct waves, based on their infection with different SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Methods
This study included hospitalized patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during 15 weeks around the peak of each of 4 waves: W1, ancestral strain/B.1 lineage (2020/05/31 to 2020/09/12); W2, Gamma/P.1 variant (2021/01/31 to 2021/05/15); W3, Omicron variant (2021/12/05 to 2022/03/19); and W4, BA.4/BA.5 subvariants (2022/05/22 to 2022/09/03). Symptom data were extracted from the Brazilian Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Database. Relative risks were calculated, and an analysis of symptom networks was performed.
Results
Patients who were hospitalized during the prevalence of the Gamma/P.1 variant demonstrated a higher risk, primarily for symptoms such as fatigue, abdominal pain, low oxygen saturation, and sore throat, than patients hospitalized during the first wave. Conversely, patients who were hospitalized during the predominance of the Omicron variant exhibited a lower relative risk, particularly for symptoms such as loss of smell, loss of taste, diarrhea, fever, respiratory distress, and dyspnea. Similar results were observed in COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized during the wave of the Omicron subvariants BA.4/BA.5. A symptom network analysis, conducted to explore co-occurrence patterns among different variants, revealed significant differential profiles across the 4 waves, with the most notable difference observed between the W2 and W4 networks.
Conclusions
Overall, the relative risks and patterns of symptom co-occurrence associated with different SARS-CoV-2 variants may reflect disease severity.