Revista de investigación en dermatología clínica

Dermatological manifestations of covid-19 – a study from north India

Puneet Bhargava

As of June 15th, 2020, COVID-19 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS‐CoV‐2] has infected 3.67 lakh patients in India bringing the world total to 8.4 million.

SARS-CoV 2 is an enveloped virus composed of positive sense single-stranded RNA and belongs to the coronavirus family. The lungs being the primary site of infection, with patients presenting symptoms ranging from a mild flu-like symptoms to fulminant pneumonia and potentially lethal respiratory distress.

Interestingly, there have been many COVID-19 cases reported with cutaneous manifestations. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of various cutaneous manifestation in patients with COVID-19.

Studies conducted worldwide categorize observed COVID-associated skin patterns under 5 main categories:

Acral erythema with vesicles or pustules; so-called "pseudo-chilblains" – "covid toes” Vesicular (chicken pox-like) eruptions Maculopapular eruptions in 47% cases – most common cutaneous finding in covid-19 infected individual. Urticaria Livedoid manifestations

The aim of the study was to collect data from one of the largest covid dedicated facilities of north India, where cutaneous manifestations were observed (if any) in covid-19 admitted cases. According to our study 3 out of 550 covid infected patients showed livedoid manifestations. Data was also collected from 140 pediatric group of patients infected with covid-19, where none showed any skin manifestation. This study is probably the foremost and largest collection of cases from one of the biggest covid- dedicated hospital from north India.