Conjunctivitis in SARS-CoV-2 may lead to more severe infection

A higher prevalence of more severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection was found among patients with ocular signs or symptoms of conjunctivitis, according to a study.

The early detection of the signs and symptoms of conjunctivitis may help to predict COVID-19 clinical phenotype, the authors suggested.

The ocular signs and symptoms, anosmia/ageusia, clinical/laboratory parameters, and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of 53 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 were analyzed.

Conjunctival swabs for all patients were negative. Conjunctivitis symptoms and physician-assessed ocular signs were seen in 37% and 28% of patients respectively. The mean age for patients with ocular symptoms or signs was76.8 years compared to 57.2 years in patients without ocular symptoms. Similarly, these patients had longer hospitalizations (38 days vs 14 days, respectively) and higher plasma levels of Interleukin-6 (43.5 pg/ml vs 8 pg/ml, respectively).

Reference
Ranzenigo M, Bruzzesi E, Galli L, et al. Symptoms and signs of conjunctivitis as predictors of disease course in COVID-19 syndrome. J Ophthalmic Inflamm Infect. 2021;11(1):35. doi: 10.1186/s12348-021-00264-0. PMID: 34553288; PMCID: PMC8457539.