VARICELLA LIKE DERMATOLOGICAL MANIFESTATION FOLLOWING SARSCOVID-19 INFECTION :A DIAGNOSTIC DILEMMA

Abstract

The infection caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 is a public health emergency of international concern. Although, COVID-19, mainly affects the lungs, the infection can spread to extrapulmonary tissues, causing multiorgan involvement in severely ill patients. The infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 is related to the pattern of expression of the viral entry factors ACE2 and TMPRSS2 in human tissues. As such, the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts are at high risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection due to their high expression of ACE2 and TMPRSS2, which explains the clinical phenotype described in the vast majority of infected patients that includes pneumonia and diarrhea. Recently, concern regarding virus to infect the skin has been raised by dermatologists due to the increasing observations of cutaneous manifestations in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Although there is little evidence of the expression of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 in the normal skin, the dermatological ndings observed among COVID-19 patients warrants further investigation to delineate the mechanisms of skin affection after SARS-CoV-2 infection[1]. The frequency of skin lesions in these patients varies between 1.8 % and 20.4 % . The major dermatologic morphologies described in CoVID-19 cases were morbilliform, pernio-like, urticaria, macular erythema, vesicle, papulosquamous and retiform purpura