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We heard about “covid fingers” as a symptom of coronavirus infection at the beginning of the pandemic. However, when people with this problem were tested, it was found that most were tested negative for SARS-CoV-2. The search for the actual cause of “covid fingers” began. The journal Nature has just published the results of a recent study by scientists from the Yale School of Medicine. Have you managed to solve the mystery of “covid fingers”?
- “Covid fingers” are dermatological changes resembling frostbites. They appear on the toes, sometimes hands, ears and nose.
- The lesions appear as reddish-purple spots. Changes can be itchy, tender, and in some cases painful.
- The increase in the cases of “covid fingers” has been combined with the rising number of coronavirus infections. Hence the suspicion that these problems are related (hence the name of these skin lesions)
- Some studies suggest that the coronavirus may not be the cause of “covid fingers”
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- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
A wave of patients with “covid fingers”
In March 2020, Massachusetts General Hospital dermatologist Dr. Esther Freeman noticed a peculiar phenomenon: a wave of patients with discolored toes asking for a consultation. The doctor had seen such changes before. Red-purple spots on the toes, sometimes hands, ears or nose that can be itchy, tender, and in some cases painful – a classic sign of frostbite. Each winter she faced one or two incidents. “Suddenly, I was seeing 15, 20 patients a day,” he says in Nature.
Doctors around the world had similar observations. The increase in cases of discolored toes has coincided with the increasing number of COVID-19 cases. So it seemed that the two problems were related to each other. So the media called the changes on the fingers “covid fingers”.
Further part below the video.
However, when doctors examined people with this dermatological problem, it turned out that most of them did not test positive for SARS-CoV-2. “Scientists were perplexed and have been looking for answers ever since,” writes Nature. How frostbite occurs is not entirely clear. “We think of it as a cold injury,” says dermatologist and researcher at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, Patrick McCleskey. Scientists believe it likely leads to a restriction in blood flow, causing some cells to die and trigger an inflammatory process.
- «Covid skin» – unusual symptoms of Omikron infection
Given the link between COVID-19 and changes in the toes, some researchers pointed to the fact that at the onset of the pandemic people spent more time barefoot and literally freezing. In addition, media coverage of “covid pacas” may have caused more people to seek medical help in connection with changes in feet.
“Covid fingers” still attract the attention of scientists. On February 25, another paper was published examining the possible link between this dermatological problem and the coronavirus infection. 21 people from Connecticut took part in the study – “frostbites” occurred in them in the first months of the pandemic (most between April and May 2020). About a third have reported symptoms of COVID-19, and a third reported that they have had contact with someone who has been infected or suspected of being infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Scientists have used different methods to find antibodies and T cells specific to the coronavirus – signs that the body has produced what is known as coronavirus. adaptive immune response to the pathogen. However, they were detected in only two people (including, however, a confirmed infection with a positive test result). In the remaining 19 people, no immunological evidence of passing SARS-CoV-2 infection was found.
However, Dr Esther Freeman, who was not involved in the study, notes that it was conducted in a small group, meaning the results are not necessarily generalizable. She also recalled that much larger epidemiological studies (from January and July 2021) showed a link between frostbite-like lesions and SARS-CoV-2.
The cause of “covid fingers”. “The case is not closed”
The results of the above work do not exclude a direct relationship between COVID-19 and frostbite-like lesions. It also raises “some very interesting questions that deserve further investigation,” says Dr. Freeman. As the doctor points out, it does not exclude, inter alia, the possibility that people exposed to the coronavirus may have fought it off with an innate immune response – the first line of defense that does not prompt the body to produce detectable antibodies and T-cells against SARS-CoV-2.
“The case is not closed,” says Esther Freeman. On the one hand, she saw patients who rightly developed frostbite after exposure to cold. On the other hand, she has seen people test positive for SARS-CoV-2 and then develop frostbite without any other obvious explanation.
The resulting hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. “Maybe all of these things are true,” says Jeff Gehlhausen, dermatologist and immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, in Nature, who wrote the study.
Ultimately, then, the issue of “covid fingers” triggers an intriguing scientific debate. Whether the person had COVID-19 or the cause was different, frostbites usually go away within two or three weeks.
Has your skin condition worsened? Make an appointment with a dermatologist and perform a dermatoscopy.
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