a recent update from the CDC just expanded their list of initial symptoms
for developing an infection from the novel coronavirus known as covid 19 and
although not highlighted on this list developing bilateral red and irritated
eyes in the form of a conjunctivitis has been gaining some alarming attention in
a recent publication about the first confirmed case of covid 19 that came out
of Italy suggesting that the virus could spread through the tears from the eye so
let's take a look at this case and see what's so important about it hello and
welcome this is dr. Allen here from the doctor eye health show helping you learn
all about the eyes and vision and today we're talking about a letter that was
recently published on the 17th of April through the annals of internal medicine
which outlined a case report of the first confirmed case of covid-19 that
came out of Italy it reported a 65 year old woman who traveled to Italy from
Wuhan China who and her first day of symptoms was admitted to the hospital
and was confirmed of having covid-19 her initial symptoms were reported as having
a non-productive cough a sore throat inflammation of her nasal mucosal lining
as well as having bilateral conjunctivitis if you've never heard of
the term conjunctivitis before that's a medical term for having a quote-unquote
pink eye where the outer clear coating of the eye known as the conjunctiva
becomes inflamed that inflammation causes the blood vessels to dilate and
makes the eyes appear red as well as leak fluid which is responsible for the
common symptoms of a watery discharge when having some form of infectious
pinkeye and at about her 4th day she started developing the more common
symptoms of a fever nausea and vomiting and about day three when they noticed
that her bilateral conjunctivitis was not showing signs of improvement they
decided to sample her tears and run that to see if they could find the virus in
her tears and as you might expect yes it came out positive what's interesting
about this case report is what they continued to find as they tested her
nasal mucosal lining as well as her tears throughout her stay at the
hospital after about 15 days her bilateral
conjunctivitis did die down and her eyes are turned
back to normal but after about 16 days her mucosal lining of her nose stops
showing positive results for the virus however her ocular secretions continued
to show positive virus up to day 21 and then they continued to test it and
although it skipped a few days again positive results were found at day 27
coming from the eyes that is significant because it shows that viral replication
is sustained in the conjunctiva now the presence of having bilateral
conjunctivitis has been a long known possible symptom of covid 19 but as
outlined by a recent update from the American Academy of Ophthalmology most
of these reported cases show a very low percentage of people having an initial
presentation of having conjunctivitis and that's exactly why I think that the
CDC has an included conjunctivitis in their list of initial symptoms what is
so important about the case apart here is that the researchers sought to not
just find hey is the virus showing up in the tears but could the virus
potentially cause infection to other people if somebody was to get in contact
with the tears so the researchers took the first RNA
positive samples and ran them in the laboratory and found that yes the virus
did replicate in the growth medium so what does this all mean well despite
this case important and many others the existing data does still suggest that
conjunctivitis is an uncommon event in a covid 19 infection however
conjunctivitis is in general so common we're talking either allergic
conjunctivitis from presence of allergies a toxic conjunctivitis from a
chemical spill or even your garden-variety bacterial or viral
pinkeye because it's so common that means that your eye care provider
whether that be an optometrist or an ophthalmologist maybe one of the first
practitioners to come in contact with somebody who is infected with Kovan 19
for this reason all I care personnel are to protect their mouth their nose and
their eyes whether that be with goggles or a full face shield
in this picture here whenever they are working with somebody with a potential
infection of covid19 now I am in no way nor is the information
presenting in this video suggesting that everybody needs to start wearing eye
protection all of the time that type of information and recommendation needs to
come from an organization such as the CDC but my goal with this video was to
present further information about what we know about The Cove in nineteen and
what to keep in mind if you or a loved one develop a conjunctivitis and if
anybody needs to consult with an eye care professional thankfully many eye
care clinics have been able to adopt telemedicine in order to triage
emergency cases either over the computer or over somebody's smartphone helping
reduce in-person contact and overall reducing the amount of cases that need
to go into the emergency room if you have a story to share from your
experience during covid19 if you know somebody who's had
conjunctivitis related to covid19 or anything related to that go
ahead and leave your story below said I'd love to hear how you're doing
otherwise I wish you and your family great health and I'm confident we'll get
through this thank you