Coronavirus infection can also manifest via the skin. Here’s how to recognize it and intervene
- What is cutaneous Covid
- The exanthematous manifestations
- The “chilblains from Covid” and vascular lesions
- Hair loss, herpes and shingles
- Because it affects the skin
- When is Covid and when not
“I started to have hypersensitivity to the skin , back and under the breasts. I felt burning, but I didn’t have a fever. The clothes bothered me and I felt like I had internal inflammation. I had a few days left during which I also started to feel itchy arms and wrists. ” Alessia, 44, lives in La Spezia and thus tells the very first symptoms of her Covid infection, which was later confirmed by the positive molecular swab.
“So I went on for about a week, in the meantime I have also appeared fever, aching joints, cooling and lost smell and taste,” explains Alessia, still slightly positive at the buffer output, and therefore in isolation . His case is not the only one, as demonstrated by several studies by dermatologists conducted on patients with Sars-Cov2 infection, so much so that someone speaks of “cutaneous Covid”, which manifests itself on a dermatological level.
What is cutaneous Covid
Sometimes it presents with rashes that may be similar to those of chickenpox or measles; at other times there may be urticaria, vasculitis or the so-called “chilblains ” from Covid, ie cold, purple fingers and toes. Among the first to individual as symptoms of coronavirus infection, since last March, was Sebastiano Recalcati, dermatologist at the Alessandro Manzoni hospital in Lecco who, after a first study published in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, has deepened the research on Covid patients with skin manifestations. «The skin can be a mirror of internal diseases and this virus is one of the most striking examples: unlike other viruses, such as that of chickenpox which gives a specific rash, Sars-Cov2 gives polyform and heterogeneous manifestations. It means that it can manifest itself in different ways and in different organs: the lungs and the respiratory system, the central nervous system, the kidneys, but also the skin. We realized this by working in Covid departments, where we dermatologists in emergency were also called last spring. Today, after studying over 400 subjects, we were able to identify three large groups of dermatological disorders associated with Covid, present in 10/15% of cases “explains the expert, of which an American scientific journal will soon publish a second research work on the subject.
The exanthematous manifestations
“This first category includes skin rashes, urticaria or multiform erythema , which can resemble the exanthematous diseases of children, such as measles and chicken pox. They present with spots or vesicles, scattered on the trunk and limbs, and last on average a week. According to our studies, they usually appear very early, in some cases even earlier than the other symptoms of Covid, while in other patients they are associated with fever, sore throat, loss of smell and taste “explains Recalcati.
The ” chilblains from Covid ” and vascular lesions
“A second group includes the so-called ‘ Covid chilblains ‘ and vasculitic lesions. Chilblains can mainly affect children and young adults in whom, thanks to ready immune defenses, the prognosis is usually good, in the sense that they resolve spontaneously and in a short time »says the dermatologist. They affect the extremities, then the fingers and toes that turn purple and cold , a sign that there is a circulation disorder. According to experts, this happens because the virus damages the smaller vessels, which are located in these parts of the body, with an “immune-mediated mechanism”.
“When we saw many chilblains in an unusual season last March, we became suspicious, thinking about Covid. In those cases the swabs were almost always negative and the serological tests were rarely positive, a sign that they were mild infections , which did not give other symptoms and often did not generate an antibody response. This is because in children and in the young population the immune system could in some cases eliminate the viral load before antibodies develop – explains the expert – Vasculitic lesions , on the other hand, are inflammations affecting the blood vessels, which manifest themselves in the form of purple spots similar to bruises or bruises. They are more serious, they are found above allin hospitalized and elderly patients, and have a worse prognosis. Sometimes they can even cause thrombosis. They appear at a later stage and are due to the fact that the virus can cause damage mediated by the immune system even two or three weeks after the infection
