CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF BODY TEMPERATURE IN SARS-COV-2 POSITIVITY: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY AMONG TRAVELERS

Abstract

Background: Globally, SARS-CoV-2 infections continue to rise with dire consequences on the social and economic activities in affected countries. This prospective cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the evidence of body temperature and the presence of COVID-19 diseases among travelers. Methods: The study recruited 314 travelers who visited the Trust Specialist Hospital in Accra hospital. Body temperature readings, demographic information, and the RT-PCR test results of nasopharyngeal swabs were collected routinely from the travelers between March and August 2021. Descriptive statistics and measures of association were performed for the associations between the body temperature readings as an outcome variable verses age, sex, ORF1AB gene, and NGene CT values. An alpha value (p<0.05) was considered statistically significant. Results: There was an even distribution of body temperature readings among the SARS-CoV-2 infected patients however, 90.4% of them were asymptomatic with low/normal body temperature. The ORF1AB mean CT values indicated high infectivity at low/normal and high body temperatures of the patients (26.9 and 25.9 cycles respectively). About 70.1% recorded ORF1AB CT values less than 30 cycles. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that asymptomatic SAR-CoV-2 infected individuals are equally infectious as those who present with symptoms, hence, temperature checks alone may be misleading. This study was restricted to the use of a rise in body temperature to define asymptomatic cases therefore does not seek to generalize