Anosmia as a prominent symptom of COVID-19 infection

Abstract

According to WHO recommendations, everyone must protect themselves against Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which will also protect others. Due to the lack of current effective treatment and vaccine for COVID-19, screening, rapid diagnosis and isolation of the patients are essential (1, 2). Therefore, identifying the early symptoms of COVID-19 is of particular importance and is a health system priority. Early studies from COVID-19 outbreak in China have illustrated several non-specific signs and symptoms in infected patients, including fever, dry cough, dyspnea, myalgia, fatigue, lymphopenia, and radiographic evidence of pneumonia (3, 4). Recently, a probability of association between COVID-19 and altered olfactory function has been reported in South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, UK and the United States (5-8). However, to our knowledge, the definite association between COVID-19 and anosmia has not been published.