Ocular manifestations and clinical characteristics of 534 cases of COVID-19 in China: A cross-sectional study

Liwen Chen; Chaohua Deng; Xuhui Chen; Xian Zhang; Bo Chen; Huimin Yu; Yuanjun Qin; Ke Xiao; Hong Zhang; Xufang Sun

Moreover, conjunctival congestion and positive RT-PCR in pharyngeal swabs were found at the same time in four COVID-19 patients (cases 11, 20, 23, 24) who reported no eye disease history. Therefore, we suggest that the conjunctival swab test for SARS-CoV-2 should be performed in patients with conjunctival congestion. Our study also found that the average duration of conjunctival congestion was 4.9 ± 2.6 days (mean [SD]), ranging from 2 to 10 days. Two patients diagnosed with COVID patients had an initial symptom of conjunctival congestion, which reminds us that ocular manifestations occur early in the course of COVID-19. Therefore, healthcare workers should pay attention to patients' ocular symptoms and manifestations in the early stage of disease and should perform a conjunctival swab test for SARS-CoV-2 in patients with conjunctival congestion. SARS-CoV-2 is thought to be transmitted from person to person mainly through respiratory droplets or close contact. 11 The ocular surface is exposed to the outside environment, which may become a potential gateway for pathogens such as viruses to invade the human body. 12, 13 Thus, hand-eye contact should be avoided as much as possible. We found that a total of 332 COVID-19 patients had a history of hand-eye contact, including 286 cases who reported seldom hand-eye contact and 46 who reported frequent hand-eye contact. Among the 25 cases with conjunctival congestion, 18 (72%) had a history of hand-eye contact, 13 with frequent contact and 12 who never . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.