skin changes that may occur

The symptoms of Covid-19 are numerous and many of them go unnoticed. This is the case of dermatological conditions which in fairly isolated cases can occur due to the virus. They also appear more frequently associated with vaccination. Usually in either case these are not very worrying symptoms and in many cases they go away without treatment.

Dr Priscila Giavedoni, from Hôpital Clínic de Barcelona (Spain) explains that since the start of the pandemic, the relationship between the coronavirus and dermatological problems has been studied and it has been found that the affect is very low.

“Of the first 2,761 patients who consulted the emergency room or were admitted to the Clinic with symptoms of Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic in March 2020, only 2.1% presented skin lesions induced by the SARS – CoV-2 ”.

“The most common type of injury in admitted patients was Rashes, which could be produced by the virus itself or by the treatments administered, ”added the specialist.

And he noted that in ambulatory patients, they’ve seen many cases of frostbite in the spring, “a time of year when it’s usually rare.”

At the start of the pandemic, he said, “the skin manifestations often went unnoticed in critically ill patients who could not even breathe on their own.”

The rash is a pinkish rash that usually occurs as a result of certain infectious diseases.

Watching the skin is the key

It is precisely for this reason that Giavedoni emphasizes that “looking at the skin is the key, because it can be the protagonist that allows to detect the disease, because it is the first or only sign of infection. This has been observed in patients consulting for frostbite on the hands and feet or hives lesions. “

And he added that “this tendency for SARS-CoV-2 skin involvement continued to be observed in subsequent studies and it appears that skin manifestations are isolated in mild cases and in hospitalized patients, they can reach up to 8%. In these more serious patients who require admission, the most frequent lesions remain skin rashes which also continue to be attributed to both the virus and the treatments used “.

In general, skin lesions associated with COVID-19 are mild and self-limiting. In some cases a symptomatic treatment and cases of patients requiring hospitalization for skin manifestations are exceptional, he said.

This group includes patients with thrombosis, a known complication of this disease which, in addition to affecting the lungs, can damage the vessels that supply blood to the skin and cause necrosis.

And in patients who have persistent symptoms after the acute stage of infection, the most common skin manifestation is hair loss, which is also mostly mild and self-limiting, requiring only topical treatment lasting a few weeks.

Vaccines and dermatological symptoms

Dermatological changes are more common after vaccination, Giavedoni noted.

“We know that vaccines are in the social and medical collimator. In dermatology too we put the magnifying glass and we have found that the skin side effects of vaccines are mainly soft and transient“, He said.

“In Spain – he added – a study was recently carried out with more than 400 patients with adverse effects to vaccines and it was confirmed that erythema at the injection site was the most common reaction and also that in the great majority of cutaneous cases the undesirable effects did not require treatment.

Giavedoni, who has published articles on the relationship between Covid-19 and the skin in magazines of great international prestige such as Journal of Clinical Medicine O British Journal of Dermatology, concluded that “in the event of suspicious Covid-19 lesions, the image-based assessment decreases patient exposure and possible infections ”.

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