Covid-19: Is scanning your temperature effective?

In most cases, the Thermometer Medical Grade Non-Contact body temperature meter is used to take your body temperature and the difference in body temperature and fever is that a fever shows a reading higher than 38ºC.

Normal body temperature differs from person to person and it changes during the day. It is also affected by your surrounding environment.

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Review spoke to Shelly McGee (Health Policy Analyst: Knowledge Management, Research and Ethics Department (KMRED) at the South African Medical Association) about the effectiveness of this type of screening.

“Your fever may spike and then return to normal, even when you are ill and infectious. Taking a temperature on its own at a point in time is of very little use, you have to also ask the person about any symptoms and history of exposure. Our Ministerial Advisory Committee issued a statement recommending against these topical temperature measurements some time ago already,” she said.

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McGee says rules for workplaces, published by the Department of Labour have removed the original requirement for temperature measurement as part of screening requirements.

“Screening for symptoms and asking about a cough, sore throat, loss of smell and taste is far more important if you are really trying to deal with potentially infectious patients. We should not just be relying on a temperature check,” she concluded.

This article was republished from Review Online with permission 

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