This study assessed the clinical response to COVID-19 in patients with positive gastrointestinal
parasitic infection.
A total number of 100 patients were screened for COVID-19 infection with a nasopharyngeal
swab and real-time polymerase chain reaction in the time period from August 2020 till August
2021. Patient's clinical status was classified according to WHO criteria as asymptomatic,
mild/moderate, severe and critical. Fresh stool sample specimens were obtained from all patients
included in the study for parasites and ova detection. For all cases clinical and laboratory
data such as age, gender, results of stool analysis and clinical condition were collected, tabulated
and statistically analyzed in corporation with clinical pathology, internal medicine and parasitology
departments at Misr University for Science and Technology. This study was conducted
on 100 COVID-19 patients whose stool specimens were examined for parasitic infections. The
age of the studied patients ranged from 30 to 80 years with 51.21±31.68. They were 44 females
and 56 males. The severity of clinical condition among COVID-19 patients was significantly
different with the different parasitic infection (P value <0.0001). The 72.2% of asymptomatic
COVID-19 patients had positive parasitic infection in their stools, but only 35.5% and 6.1% of
the patients suffered from mild and severe clinical conditions respectively, had positive stool
results for parasitic infection. The severity of clinical condition among COVID-19 patients
didn't significantly different between the protozoa, helminthic or mixed parasitic species