The "5th Vital Sign" That Might Prevent The Spread Of Coronavirus

While implementing travel bans might not protect people from infectious diseases, commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine said talking about where you've traveled could have protective effects. 

In the new report, researchers discussed a potential change to patient evaluations that might improve infectious disease detection and help prevent the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). 

The authors from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center said doctors should ask patients their travel history when they're getting a checkup. Researchers are calling it the "fifth vital sign" since the extra step might be as imperative as assessing temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure. 

There are certain countries the CDC advised against visiting1 (like China, Iran, Italy, and more), as well as cities in the U.S2. that have been affected by COVID-19.

Researchers looked at past cases of coronavirus, including SARS, MERS, as well as the Ebola outbreak, and realized how important travel history is in early and accurate detection of globally infectious diseases. 

According to infectious disease specialist Sandra Kesh, M.D., the severity of coronavirus and influenza might be the same, but coronavirus seems to be more infectious. 

According to the paper, the number of COVID-19 (aka coronavirus) infections exceeded the number of SARS and MERS infections after just six weeks of the first known case. 

Since there's currently no treatment for coronavirus, adding this extra screening method can help indicate the severity of symptoms and allow doctors to take more cautious and effective measures.