Are Vinegar and Water Capable to Screen COVID-19 Patients?

May 14, 2021May 26, 2021 Dr. Arup Giri

Picture Courtesy of Science Photo Library

Since the COVID19 outbreak, health care workers have been issued safety gear and infection control procedures have been dealt with. Prior to the use of procedures and diagnostic equipment, patient preparation was limited because of the high incidence of unavailability of laboratory methods for screening.

The wave of patients number is increasing day by day and now a day, it is very difficult to test for the presence of COVID-19 by ordinary people. One symptom of the COVID-19 patient is the absence of smell and taste. One study published in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine which indicated that use of vinegar and water combined mixture inhalation may give the indication of infection.

The study was conducted in the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in April to June 2020 among 4120 meat packing workers.

In that study it has been found that “The sensitivity and specificity of the active olfactory screening examinations were 41.2% and 85.3%, respectively, using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests as a gold standard. 10.6% of employees who tested positive for COVID-19 had an olfactory dysfunction as their only symptom.”

A first screen should be quick and definitive. Although olfactory tests are considered non-sensitive, it could be used to strengthen the performance of current tests. The ‘functional’ olfactory examination shows high sensitivity and can rule out pathogenicity in a population.

Q 1. Are Vinegar and Water Capable to Screen COVID-19 Patients?

The sensitivity and specificity of the active olfactory screening examinations were 41.2% and 85.3%, respectively, using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests as a gold standard. 10.6% of employees who tested positive for COVID-19 had an olfactory dysfunction as their only symptom

About the Author

The author is Dr. Arup Giri, Associate Professor of Baba Mastnath University, Rohtak, Haryana, India. To know more about him, you may follow the links.