Coronavirus: “Covid tongue”, a new symptom of the disease?

Since the novel coronavirus epidemic broke out, scientists have been working really hard to know as much as possible about the virus. If some of them are working on medicines and vaccines, others are trying to find the different Covid-19 symptoms.

Many symptoms are known now and have been including in the official list drew up by the World Health Organization (WHO). We can name fever, dry cough, or fatigue. And since then, other symptoms have been reported such as loss of taste and smell, muscle or joint pain, frostbites…

And this list is likely to get longer following the study led by London King’s College epidemiologist Tim Spector. Called “Covid tongue” by the scientist, this symptom occurs with strange mouth ulcers. “One in five people with Covid still present with less common symptoms that don’t get on the official PHE list - such as skin rashes. Seeing increasing numbers of Covid tongues and strange mouth ulcers”, Tim Spector wrote on Twitter.

The scientist did not hesitate to post on January 17 a picture of one of his patients’ tongue to better illustrate this curious symptom, showing white rashes.

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Unfortunately for people infected with this symptom, it “can last weeks or months”, he said.

Other scientific studies already suggested symptoms affecting sick’s mouths. This summer, dermatology magazine Jama Network shared the work carried out by Madrid college hospital. The latter said that in 21 patients with Covid-19 and skin rashes, 6 of them – naming 29% - showed enanthema, that is to say buccal cavity lesions. According to the team of scientists, these buccal cavity lesions occurred around twelve days after the first symptoms of the disease.

So far, the “Covid tongue” has not made it to the official list of Covid-19 symptoms drew up by WHO yet.