Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of suspected COVID-19 patients in the isolation ward in Guangzhou, China: a cohort study

BACKGROUND: Since there are reports of cases of 2019-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) asymptomatic carriers in China recently and fever is one of the main symptoms, we aimed to distinguish COVID-19 cases from other febrile patients with clinical examinations in this study. METHODS: A total of 134 suspected COVID-19 patients in the isolation ward of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University were recruited from January 23 to May 23, 2020. We analyze the pathogenic form and clinical characteristics. RESULTS: Among them, pathogens were identified in only 84 patients (62.7%), including 23 (17.1%) with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), 30 (22.3%) with other viruses, 31 (25.0%) with other pathogens and 3 (3.5%) with mixed infections. The commonly observed symptoms of COVID-19 patients were cough, fever, fatigue, and muscle aches, which were significantly different than the symptoms of nonviral infections (P<0.05) but from those of other viral infections (P>0.05). Furthermore, lactate dehydrogenase and the neutrophil/lymphocyte were found significantly high in COVID-19 patients compared to non-COVID-19 patients (P<0.05). The most common manifestations of COVID-19 patients were ground-glass opacities (100%) with or without lung consolidation, however, they also often showed involvement of several lobes of both lungs (P<0.05). Due to the clear differential diagnosis, the overall antibiotic use rate was 35.8% (31/87). CONCLUSIONS: When diagnosing COVID-19, infections with other pathogens should not be ignored. Successful pathogen identification will support accurate treatment.