CMAAO Coronavirus Facts and Myth Buster: Skin and Long COVID-19

With input from Dr Monica Vasudev

India

healthysoch

New Delhi, November 07, 2020 :

Skin Conditions Persistence beyond 60 days in some cases, particularly with pernio/chilblains

1. Benign, potentially painful skin conditions may persist for months among certain patients with COVID-19. Nearly 5% of patients with pernio, or chilblains, appeared to have long-hauler toe symptoms continuing for 60 days or longer. In two cases, the toe symptoms lasted for 4 to 5 months.
2. The findings have been obtained from the international COVID-19 Dermatology Registry, hosted by the American Academy of Dermatology. The registry has accumulated data on over 1,000 patients from 41 countries. About 30% of the cases collected till date have laboratory confirmation of COVID-19. Investigators recently reported findings for the first 716 patients in the registry.
3. Median duration for all symptoms was 12 days, while it was 7 days for the subset with laboratory-confirmed disease.
4. The median duration ranged from 5 days for urticaria to 20 for papulosquamous eruptions and retiform purpura.
5. The pernio subgroup was found to have the most outliers or long haulers; 5 of the 98 had toe symptoms that persisted for 60 days or more compared with one each in the subgroups with vesicular and papulosquamous eruptions.
6. Patients with morbilliform rash had a median duration of 7 days; 2 out of 29 patients had symptoms lasting for nearly 30 days. Urticaria continued for 5 days, and in one patient, the symptom persisted for 30 days. Laboratory confirmation was tied to shorter symptom duration, except for papulosquamous eruptions, which had a median duration of 20 days.
7. Urticarial and morbilliform eruptions were reported to be relatively short in duration, while pernio/chilblains and papulosquamous eruptions lasted longer.

1-in-6 people who had recovered from COVID-19 retested positive at least 2 weeks later

1. Sore throat and rhinitis were found to be the only symptoms associated with a positive result.
2. There are other reports of RNA detection after discharge, but this study noted that only two symptoms out of many (sore throat and rhinitis) were higher in those with PCR-positive status.
3. The study was published online September 18 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 

Health care workers and their families account for 1 in 6, i.e., 17.2%, hospital admissions for COVID-19 in the working age population aged 18-65 years, reported a study from Scotland published online in BMJ.

Author : Dr KK Aggarwal , President CMAAO, HCFI and Past National President IMA