IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i22p8655-d448854.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

High Probability of Long Diagnostic Delay in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Cases with Unknown Transmission Route in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Tsuyoshi Ogata

    (Tsuchiura Public Health Center of Ibaraki Prefectural Government, Tsuchiura 300-0812, Japan)

  • Hideo Tanaka

    (Fujiidera Public Health Center of Osaka Prefectural Government, Fujiidera 583-0024, Japan)

Abstract

Long diagnostic delays (LDDs) in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) might decrease the effectiveness of patient isolation in reducing subsequent transmission. We assumed that direction of government considerably increased probability of LDD among COVID-19 cases with unknown exposure in Japan. This study aimed to investigate association of route of case detection and proportion of LDD of COVID-19 in Japan. We included confirmed COVID-19 patients with symptom onset between the ninth and eleventh week in 2020, in 6 prefectures of Japan. LDD was defined as the duration between COVID-19 symptom onset and confirmation ≥6 days. We used multivariable logistic regression analyses to elucidate factors associated with LDD. The mean diagnostic delay for 364 cases was 6.3 days. Proportion of LDD was 38% for cases with known exposure, and 65% for cases with unknown exposure. The probability of LDD in cases with unknown exposure was significantly higher than that for known exposure cases (adjusted odds ratio: 2.38, 95% confidence interval: 1.354–4.21). Early PCR test after symptom onset, strengthening of PCR test capacity, and investigations to study impact of high proportion of LDD in cases without known exposure might be necessary.

Suggested Citation

  • Tsuyoshi Ogata & Hideo Tanaka, 2020. "High Probability of Long Diagnostic Delay in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Cases with Unknown Transmission Route in Japan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(22), pages 1-9, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:22:p:8655-:d:448854
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8655/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8655/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hinako Yamaguchi Oiwake & Daisuke Nonaka & Takehiko Toyosato, 2022. "Factors Associated with Delayed Diagnosis among Patients with COVID-19 in Okinawa, Japan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-13, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:22:p:8655-:d:448854. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.