Persistent ocular symptoms following COVID-19

A new study published in Nature Communications has explored persistent ocular symptoms following a COVID-19 infection.

The researchers from Linnaeus University and Linköping University in Sweden outlined a range of ocular symptoms – including near vision disturbances, strabismus, weakened autonomic pupillary reflexes and corneal neurodegeneration – that lasted for up to three years following the initial COVID-19 infection.

The study cohort included 100 individuals who experienced persistent ocular symptoms after infection and 34 control subjects who contracted COVID-19 but did not develop persistent ocular symptoms. All individuals within the study cohort did not require hospitalisation for the initial COVID-19 infection.

Among those with persistent ocular symptoms, 78% reported that their symptoms lasted for at least a year, while 33% experienced ocular symptoms for two years or longer.

Around four in ten study participants reported light sensitivity or photophobia, while close to one in three reported eye pain and around one in four reported eye fatigue.

The authors suggest that the lasting ocular effects of COVID-19 may have a neuroinflammatory origin.

“We report and formally describe a set of persistent, quality-of-life-affecting and debilitating ocular symptoms arising after recovery from mild COVID-19 that did not require hospitalisation,” they stated.