Experts warn other ailments are going undetected when people test negative for Covid-19

If you’ve tested negative for Covid-19 but you’ve still got symptoms, you might have one of six bugs running rampant in Brisbane right now. COMPARE SYMPTOMS

Testing negative to Covid-19 doesn’t mean you’re in the clear, according to health experts who say if it’s not Covid-19, it could be an array of other viruses that are getting you sick this winter.

Despite more than a million Covid-19 cases being detected this year throughout the state, other bugs could still be flying under the radar, according to infectious diseases expert Paul Griffin.

“It’s so important to follow health measures even if you test negative, because symptoms of a virus usually means you’re still infectious,” he said.

Dr Paul Griffin

This year to May 8, there have been 1848 recorded cases of influenza and 2381 cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), both of which mirror a number of Covid-19 symptoms including fever, cough and muscle soreness.

There have also been 53 cases of pneumococcal, which can cause pneumonia and sinus infections, and 432 cases of NTM lung disease, which has symptoms similar to Covid-19 including coughing, lack of energy and breathing problems.

And as both winter and spring roll through, the common cold and allergies also tend to be confused with Covid-19 due to overlapping symptoms.

Dr Griffin said testing for Covid-19 was still a complex task because of all the variables involved.

“Some people who test negative probably do have Covid, because we know RAT tests aren’t as reliable as the lab tested PCR tests. Some of them will have the flu, but aren’t getting tested for it because it won’t show up on a PCR result,“ he said.

“Some people are also testing negative to everything, so they might have something that’s not included in our usual panel of viruses.”

Dr Griffin said the lack of sensitivity was a flaw in RAT tests, and urged people to still get lab tested for Covid-19 as well as getting a respiratory viral panel test to cover majority of other common illnesses.

Queensland Health urged Queenslanders to also continue getting their annual flu vaccine, as data showed the state has an average of more than 38,000 cases of the flu each year from 2015 to 2019.

This year, the 2022 vaccine protects against four strains of the flu including A/Victoria/2570/2019 (H1N1) pdm09-like virus, A/Darwin/9/2021 (H3N2)-like virus, B/Austria/1359417,2021-like (B/Victoria lineage) virus and B/Phuket/3073/2013-like (B/Yamagata lineage) virus.