New corona symptom raises its ugly head

Israeli corona victim Efrat Fogel first noticed a significant loss of hair about a week after she became infected.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

People are complaining of a new corona symptom – hair loss.

It joins a growing list of symptoms caused by the new dreaded virus, hiccups being the last novel symptom reported.

Israeli corona victim Efrat Fogel told Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday that she first noticed a significant loss of hair about a week after she became infected. The trouble is it hasn’t stopped six weeks later.

“Suddenly I felt like I had extreme hair loss symptom, not something I’m used to experiencing,” she said. “At first I didn’t connect it to the disease. It was only after I saw a Facebook post asking if someone with corona had experienced such a thing, so I realized it was related.”

Fogel is not alone. This month long-term hair loss was added to the symptoms caused by coronavirus.

Doctors say it usually occurs three-to-five months after a patient recovers.

“It is temporary hair loss,” said Dr. Christian Rojas Moreno, an Infection Disease Specialist with MU Health Care told CBS-affiliate KCRG13 in Missouri.

“It’s a phenomenon called ‘Telogen Effluvium’ that happens after the stressful situation and in this era of COVID-19, there is already a baseline of increased stress level. We add the actual infection with COVID-19 and it can cause significant stress,” he said.

Some corona patients have reported struggling with a number of side-effects even after recovery, suffering headaches, weight loss and general tiredness.

Among symptoms reported by people with corona are aches and pains, sore throat, diarrhea, conjunctivitis, headache,
loss of taste or smell, rashes and discoloration of fingers or toes.

Serious symptoms include chest pain, loss of breath and loss of speech and movement.

There have been 22.4 million corona cases worldwide and 788,000 deaths. In Israel there have been 97,969 confirmed sick and 788 deaths.

The virus began in Wuhan, China and swiftly spread across the globe.