Correlation between clinical symptomatology and RT-PCR results in the diagnosis of COVID-19: An analysis using routine data in Burkina Faso

---

Original Article

Author Details : Henri Gautier Ouedraogo*, Pascal Nabia, Kadari Cisse, Oumarou Ouedraogo, Abdou Azaque Zoure, Danielle Belemsaga Yugbare, Sylvie Zida, Eric Arnaud Diendere, Tani Sagna

Volume : 9, Issue : 1, Year : 2023

Article Page : 10-16

https://doi.org/10.18231/j.ijmmtd.2023.003

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the correlation between suspected COVID-19 symptoms and RT-PCR results in the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Burkina Faso.
Materials and Methods: We analyzed SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR routine diagnostic data in Burkina Faso. Data were collected from March 9, 2020 to September 30, 2020 in the framework of the COVID-19 surveillance. Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and Kappa concordance were used to check the correlation between COVID-19 symptoms and the RT-PCR results.
Results: A total of 2217 participants were tested for COVID-19 using RT-PCR, of them 779 COVID-19 positive. The mean age of the participants was 38.7± 17.69 years. Suspected symptoms presented by participants were fever (40.4%), cough (38.6%), asthenia (27.3%), headache (23.6%), dyspnea (20.8%), and odynophagia (16.3%). The sensitivity of presence of at least a clinical sign compared to RT-PCR results was 62.13% and the specificity was 39.85%. The kappa agreement between the presence of COVID-19 suspected symptoms and RT-PCR results was 0.017. The presence of aguesia and/or anosmia in patients induced a positive predictive value of RT-PCR of 91.30%.
Conclusion: The correlation between the COVID-19 symptoms and RT-PCR results in the diagnosis of COVID-19 was very weak. The present study confirms that most clinical signs associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection are not specific to COVID-19, hence the need to always combine RT-PCR or other biological tests with the clinical diagnosis. However, aguesia and anosmia are of interest with a high degree of RT-PCR positivity when present in a COVID-19 suspected patient.
 

Keywords: Diagnosis, Symptoms, Correlation, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, RT-PCR

How to cite : Ouedraogo H G, Nabia P, Cisse K, Ouedraogo O, Zoure A A, Yugbare D B, Zida S, Diendere E A, Sagna T, Correlation between clinical symptomatology and RT-PCR results in the diagnosis of COVID-19: An analysis using routine data in Burkina Faso. IP Int J Med Microbiol Trop Dis 2023;9(1):10-16

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.