Anosmia and dysgeusia among corona virus disease (COVID-19) patients- A review

COVID-19 is a viral infection of the respiratory tract presenting with fever, cough and fatigue. Absence of specific symptoms makes diagnosis and control of transmission of this disease a challenging task.Some recent studies have reported smell and taste dysfunction in COVID 19 patients. However, little is known about the prevalence and pathogenesis of these two symptoms with conflicting reports on the duration of these symptoms, recovery rate as well as the prognosis of patients who have anosmia and /or dysgeusia. To seek answers, a literature review on this topic from databases like PubMed, Clinical Key, Science Direct, Scopus and Google Scholar was conducted. The objective of this review was to further examine the prevalence of the smell and taste dysfunction in COVID-19 patients, explorethe pathophysiology for the occurrence of these two symptoms and evaluate its prognostic value.It was observed that olfactory and gustatory dysfunction was more prevalent among COVID-19 patients who belonged to younger age group and among females. Patients who presented with anosmia and dysgeusia as their main symptoms had lesser severity of the COVID-19 infection when compared to patients without these symptoms indicating that patients with chemosensory dysfunction have good prognosis.