THE INCIDENCE OF CONJUNCTIVITIS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH CORONAVIRUS INFECTION (COVID-19) IN PATIENTS OF THE OUTPATIENT DEPARTMENT OF UFA

The purpose of our work was to study the incidence of conjunctivitis in polyclinic patients and to identify a possible relationship between conjunctivitis and coronavirus infection, as well as its effect on the course of inflammation of the mucous membrane of the eyeball.
Material and methods. The analysis of electronic medical records of patients with confirmed diagnoses of inflammatory diseases of the mucous membrane of the eyeball and COVID-19 for the period from 2020 to 2023 was carried out.
Results: during the study of primary and general morbidity, 4,489 people with a diagnosis of conjunctivitis were selected. Of these, 705 (15.7%) patients had a history of coronavirus infection of various severity.
Conclusions. It was revealed that in most cases (85.4%), patients with a history of COVID-19 had a single episode of conjunctivitis. The relationship between the frequency of conjunctivitis cases and the age of patients was revealed (an increase in the number of episodes of conjunctival inflammation in older age groups). Conjunctivitis occurred within 5 to 10 months before or after COVID-19. Patients with conjunctivitis diagnosed no more than 1 month before or after coronavirus infection were divided into two subgroups: I subgroup – patients who first suffered COVID-19, then conjunctivitis, II subgroup – patients who suffered conjunctivitis before coronavirus infection. Additionally, somatic concomitant diseases and the course of coronavirus infection in these patients were studied. The percentage of lung damage and the percentage of hospitalizations were higher in subgroup I. This is probably due to the fact that there were more patients with concomitant somatic pathology in this subgroup. This also explains the greater number of patients with conjunctivitis after a coronavirus infection. Thus, conjunctivitis preceding COVID-19 may be considered as a predictor of a milder course of coronavirus infection, but these data need further investigation.

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