Effectiveness of measuring body temperature in combating COVID-19: a literature review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1679-9836.v100i4p375-379Keywords:
Fever, Body temperature, Mass screening, Diagnosis, COVID-19Abstract
Introduction: In December 2019, the first case of COVID-19 emerged, which in the following months became a pandemic disease. Among the main symptoms associated, fever, cough and vomiting are the most recurrent. For this reason, in the search to reduce contamination in public environments, several establishments started to perform screenings by measuring the temperature at the entrances and / or exits, in order to identify possible contaminated individuals. This review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of this screening method for the diagnosis of COVID-19. Methodology/Results: This review was developed from the search for articles in the electronic database Pubmed, using the descriptors "Fever", "Body Temperature", "Mass screening", "Diagnosis" and "COVID-19". The selection of articles was carried out in blind pairs and resulted in the collection of 8 articles. The exposure and discussion of the results concerns viral transmission in the oligosymptomatic phase, use of thermometers and epidemiological impact. Discussion and Conclusion: The current literature does not present sufficient evidence favorable to the use of temperature screening and several studies are against its use, given low specificity and sensitivity. On the other hand, there are positive secondary gains, such as awareness of the pandemic and warning about the necessary care at this moment.
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Copyright (c) 2021 Giovana Muniz Beni, Isabela Pontarolo Gomes , Julia Naomi Koga, João Eduardo Carvalho, Lucas Gabriel Pereto Silva , Gustavo Lenci Marques , Bernado Machado Montesanti de Almeida
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
