Doctors from the infectious diseases hospital in Rome isolated the coronavirus from the tears of a patient with COVID-19. This may mean that you can catch the coronavirus through contact with them.
Information on the isolation of SARS-CoV-2 from tears was published in the scientific journal “Annals of Internal Medicine”. The discovery was made at the Spallanzani hospital in Rome, which was the first facility in Italy to treat patients infected with the virus. It was in January a couple of Chinese tourists from the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, arrived in Italy for tourism. Spallanzani Hospital has been at the forefront of the fight against the coronavirus from the start.
Researchers from this prestigious facility collected a tear sample from a COVID-19 patient there who had one of the typical symptoms of the disease, i.e. conjunctivitis. Research has shown that the virus can replicate not only in the respiratory system, but also in the conjunctiva.
The publication emphasizes that this finding is very important from the point of view of public health. The World Health Organization (WHO) was informed about the results of the work of Roman doctors.
As explained by the researcher from the Concetta Castilletti hospital in Rome, this discovery indicates the need for additional protection measures in such situations as ophthalmological examinations, which were previously considered relatively safe in terms of the risk of infection with this virus.
Coronavirus was also isolated at the Spallanzani hospital in early February, which was then considered to be “global” news. Italy is the first country in Europe to do so.
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