Case report highlights atypical symptoms of pneumonia in a patient with COVID-19, suggesting vigilance. Persistent hiccups may indicate underlying respiratory conditions.
Singultus (hiccups), once is funny, twice is hilarious and if more than that, it is annoying. It can be there for various physiological, emotional and pathological reasons. Here, we report a young patient with a history of persistent hiccups for 5 days. There was no associated history of cough, breathlessness, fever or gastroesophageal reflux disease. On chest auscultation, there were bilateral basal crepitations. His chest computed tomography revealed peripheral ground-glass opacities and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was positive for COVID-19. He received treatment for COVID-19 with symptomatic treatment. Hiccups completely subsided over the next 5 days. The persistence of singultus in a patient should have a high index of suspicion for an atypical presentation of COVID-19 pneumonia. It can be one of the initial manifestations of pneumonia, especially in the elderly but can be present even in young adults during this COVID-19 pandemic. Early detection and timely intervention lead to favourable outcomes.
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Pathak et al. (2025) studied this question.
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