Investigação das disfunções olfativas e gustativas causadas por COVID-19

Abstract

In December 2019, China declared an emergency after cases of COVID-19 that had been claiming victims in the country. After a short period, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic that brought about an extreme change in all activities around the world. The virus affects the respiratory tract, causing intense symptoms of shortness of breath, body aches, fever, cough, tiredness and even loss of taste and smell. The objective of the work was to obtain information about the damage to the senses in individuals due to COVID-19 through online questionnaires. Volunteers were consulted regarding when and what they had symptoms, how long the symptoms had lasted, in addition to degrees of abatement and examples of specific symptoms. Data were collected between March and April 2022 and provide answers about contaminations that occurred between February 2020 and April 2022. The results showed that, of the 125 individuals who responded to the survey, most did not experience loss of smell or loss of taste. Among those who had some sensory dysfunction as a result of COVID-19, most are related to taste distortions, with a predominance of total loss of taste and lasting less than a week.