Cutaneous Vesicular of COVID-19 in Two Burn Patients

Abstract

Despite the whole world's effort for controlling an ongoing global outbreak caused by new corona virus; it is still a major public health issue. Any hospitalized patient or outpatient in burn departments should be considered as a potential infectious source of COVID-19, which may cause an overwhelming of disease. However, there are no previous experiences about COVID-19 in burn patients all over the world, and here we reported two burn cases at Amir-al-Momenin Burn Hospital Affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran with skin manifestations, which were detected as a rarely COVID-19 symptom. A 13-year-old girl [total body surface area (TBSA): 18%] and a 37-year-old woman (TBSA: 30%) who had burn injuries by gas explosion and car accident, respectively were enrolled. After admission, some vesicular injuries were visible in burn area. To confirm, skin biopsy specimens were either sent for histopathology examination or for real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as follow: Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV), chicken pox, and potassium hydroxide (KOH) for fungal infections. All test results were negative. Although they had no symptoms of COVID-19, two swabs from nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal samplings were taken, the result was negative either. Specimens were obtained from vesicular lesions for qRT-PCR assay of COVID-19. According to the molecular results for vesicular samples, all the results were positive for COVID-19. Unlike all other COVID-19 patients who have respiratory symptoms, SARS-COV-2 appeared by cutaneous vesicular and blisters in two burn cases.