key: cord-0981081-k5876mho
authors: Guo, Dongyu; Xia, Jianhua; Shen, Ye; Tong, Jianping
title: SARS‐CoV‐2 may be related to conjunctivitis but not necessarily spread through the conjunctiva SARS‐CoV‐2 and conjunctiva
date: 2020-04-10
journal: J Med Virol
DOI: 10.1002/jmv.25856
sha: 3b4e2aebed2d03c27d58951cbd7fb90e59437fb3
doc_id: 981081
cord_uid: k5876mho

We appreciate the comments of Liu et al.(1) and Peng et al.(2) in relation to our previous study. Currently, the controversy on the relationship among SARS‐CoV‐2 infection, the ocular surface and conjunctivitis are reflected in two aspects as follows: (i) can SARS‐CoV‐2 infection cause conjunctivitis? (ii) can SARS‐CoV‐2 be transmitted through the ocular surface? This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

tested conjunctival sac secretions from the patient for herpes simplex virus, adenovirus and other common viruses of viral conjunctivitis. The results were all negative, which indicated that the viral conjunctivitis of the patient may be related to SARS-CoV-2.

The careful observation of patients failed to support the local invasion and replication of SARS-CoV-2, but this may have been due to the short positive detection window of the virus on the ocular surface. Given that conjunctivitis can last for more than a week, the pathological mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 infection as it relates to conjunctivitis is unclear. In a study on feline infectious peritonitis caused by feline CoV (FCoV), researchers found that 90% of sick cats suffered from conjunctivitis, and the FCoV antigen could be detected in the conjunctiva. The authors suspected that monocytes and macrophages were infected by FCoV, thereby causing endothelial barrier dysfunction and vasculitis 8 . In addition, we contend that conjunctivitis caused by SARS-CoV-2 may also involve an abnormal autoimmune response. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings.

It is worth mentioning that SARS-CoV-2 variants have been described. During This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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