Sticking with COVID-19 guidelines post-pandemic could keep infections at bay

By Tom Campbell via SWNS

The amount of stomach bugs halved in the first six months of the pandemic, largely due to people washing their hands, scientists have concluded.

Sticking to COVID-19 hygiene guidelines post-pandemic could keep infections at bay and help save millions of dollars, researchers say.

An estimated 17 million gut infections are reported in England every year, resulting in over one million doctor appointments and 900,000 lab confirmed diagnoses.

While the effects of COVID-19 rules on health conditions like heart disease and cancer are being documented, its impact on infectious diseases like gut infections, also known as gastrointestinal infections, is still not clear.

Now scientists at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) have crunched the numbers and discovered health measures used to fight COVID-19 may have helped in more ways than one.

Their findings were published in the BMJ.

Author Dr. Saheer Gharbia said: "There has been a marked change in trends of gastrointestinal infections in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If this level of hygiene practice were to be maintained once the pandemic is over, there could be a permanent change in the number of gastrointestinal infections reported."

Health data, routinely collected by the UKHSA's seven surveillance systems between January 1 and August 2, 2020 was analyzed by the researchers.

These surveillance systems collected information on outbreaks, laboratory notifications, calls to the NHS 111 health advice service, GP appointments, and attendance at emergency care.

The data was divided into seven phases of the COVID-19 response, from before the outbreak to when restrictions were eased.

Results were then compared with averages which had been calculated with data collected between 2015 and 2019.

During the pre-outbreak phase, weeks one to four, the number of reported gut infections was comparable to previous years.

But after seven weeks, from the early outbreak phase onwards, they began to dwindle, dropping 22 per cent, the researchers found.

This trend continued until reported gut infections had fallen by 87 percent during the late lockdown phase, from weeks 19 to 22.

Historically, almost all confirmed gut infections in England - 95 percent - are caused by viruses in hospitals or care homes.

Lab confirmed viral outbreaks dropped 34 percent during the first between phases two and seven of the COVID-19 response, from 42,495 cases to 27,859.

Like previous years, cases began climbing after week 16, but the rise still remained well below the five year average.

Overall the number of suspected and confirmed gut infections dropped by 52 percent in the first six months of 2020, the researchers found.

Dr. Gharbia said: "Potential explanations for these trends include reductions in healthcare provision and unwillingness to seek medical attention."

Emergency care, GP consultations and calls to the NHS 111 helpline for gastroenteritis, diarrhoea and vomiting were all lower in 2019.

The researchers also analyzed Google Trends data and found searches for key phrases, like food poisoning, gastroenteritis and sickness bug all plunged between weeks 11 and 13.

In contrast, searchers for hand washing and disinfection rose significantly between weeks eight and 14, the researchers found.

Dr. Gharbia said: "This is an observational study, and as such, can’t establish causality.

"It only covered the first few months of the pandemic and wasn’t able to separate out the impact of other contributory factors."

But keeping up sanitary measures like hand washing post pandemic could help combat other common infections.

Dr. Gharbia continued: “The drivers of this change are likely to be multifactorial: while changes in health seeking behavior, pressure on diagnostic services, and surveillance system ascertainment have undoubtedly played a role, there has likely been a true decrease in the incidence for some pathogens resulting from the control measures and restrictions implemented.

“This suggests that if some of these changes in behavior, such as improved hand hygiene were maintained, then we could potentially see sustained reductions in the burden of gastrointestinal illness.”