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When SARS-CoV-2 first began rampaging around the world, it was thought to primarily affect the respiratory system. It soon became clear that the virus had more far-reaching effects, including on the gastrointestinal system and its bacterial symbionts.
This came as no surprise to Siew Ng, a gastroenterologist in the Center for Gut Microbiota Research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “We previously had found quite a lot of impaired gut microbiome in different conditions, including people with infectious disease,” says Ng. COVID-19 patients were no different. “In quite a substantial proportion of people, they also have gut manifestations, such as diarrhea, such as abdominal pain.”
One early study suggested that nearly 20 percent of patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection had gastrointestinal symptoms. That same study found that COVID-19–infected people shed viral RNA in their feces—another clue that the virus was getting into the gut.
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