Omani researcher finds new way to identify asymptomatic COVID-19

Muscat: A researcher from Oman has found new ways to diagnose COVID-19 in patients who are asymptomatic, or have mild symptoms, which can help them seek treatment early.

The research, which also aims to find out why some COVID patients develop worse symptoms than others, was conducted by a team led by Dr Asma Al Balushi, an infectious diseases specialist, during her fellowship training programme at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, in collaboration with researchers in Oman. Her findings were based on the ELISA antibody test, which in addition to PCR tests, throat swabs and blood sample collections were done on people confirmed to have COVID-19.

Research was conducted by visiting their homes, after securing permission from the Ministry of Health.
Once these samples were collected, researchers used them to compare the vital signs of these patients with those who had been admitted to hospital for more severe cases of the virus.

“The most important finding of this research is that ELISA and PCR testing can be used to detect those who are infected with the coronavirus, but do not show any symptoms,” said Al Balushi. “Some of these patients had the symptoms after two or three days of testing, and some remained asymptomatic. This is very important as it increases awareness of people and enhances early recognition of COVID-19 cases,” she added.

“People can, therefore, be cautious and follow the precautionary measures more strictly and reduce the transmission of the virus. It must be noted that some people did not show a significant immune response, thus antibody testing by ELISA was negative.”

Among these test subjects, different inflammatory markers have been studied to know which markers are correlated with disease severity in COVID-19 patients. Genetic testing of the human genome, especially the ACE-2 genome, was also performed.

Asma Al Balushi added that this project helped to recognise patients who might deteriorate earlier by performing special blood tests and inflammatory markers that reflect the immune response to fight the virus.

Knowing these markers and which ones to use to predict patients’ deterioration and disease progression can be used to prevent further deterioration by implementing early interventions while managing these people.

This reduces the load on intensive care units and might even prevent death. The findings of this study can also help specialists in formalising the guidelines for doctors taking care of COVID-19 patients. Therefore, unnecessary tests can be removed from the guidelines, and spending can be better organised.

“Studies like ours have their value on national and international levels”, said Al Balushi said. “They promote and enhance research levels in the country to compete with other countries with high research level to provide scientific materials to understand diseases. This attracts experienced people from all over the world to collaborate with researchers from our country”.

This research was conducted in collaboration between the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MoHERI), Ministry of Health, the Royal Hospital, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in the United Kingdom, the Central Public Health Laboratories, and the National Genetic Centre in Oman.