Health staff in nursing homes are being told that killer coronavirus symptoms are being missed in elderly residents as they are presenting different signs than normal cases.
This has increased fears among Irish nursing homes that infections are being missed because of the new and deadly symptoms.
Instead of displaying routine signs such as fever, cough and shortness of breath, older residents are suffering from confusion, loss of appetite, rapid deterioration of their health condition between checks and lethargy.
These differing symptoms may be linked to the missed diagnoses which has seen a massive spread of the killer COVID-19 bug in nursing homes around the country, with several lives killed at the hands of the virus in homes already.
Advice issued by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre has warned doctors and nurses to be alert about these differing signs.
It comes as officials from the Department of Health confirmed that a further 44 people sadly died from COVID-19 yesterday - bringing the death toll from coronavirus in Ireland to 730.
37 deaths were in the east of the country, 2 in the west, 2 in the north-west, and 3 in the south.
The deaths included 26 females and 18 males, the median age of Tuesday’s reported deaths is 87, and 33 deaths are reported to have an underlying health condition.
A further 388 cases of the deadly bug have also been confirmed, bringing the country's total cases to 16,040.
Earlier that day, the Department of Health confirmed that there is possibly another 77 'probable' COVID-19 deaths on top of the 687 people who have already died from the virus in Ireland so far.
The Department has said that details are now being provided of probable cases where a clinician has determined the death as probably being related to the killer coronavirus.
