SARS-CoV-2 Isolation From Ocular Secretions of a Patient With COVID-19 in Italy With Prolonged Viral RNA Detection

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the disease caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) that originated in China in December 2019, was recently recognized as pandemic threat by the World Health Organization, with the potential of rapidly overloading health care systems and causing substantial mortality worldwide. Human-to-human transmission occurs mainly through respiratory droplets, but other routes are under investigation, because SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in several body fluids. So far, few data are available on ocular samples from patients with COVID-19, although conjunctivitis has been occasionally reported among COVID-19 symptoms, similar to infections caused by other human coronaviruses. During the SARS epidemic, eye exposure to infectious fluids was associated with an increased risk for SARS-CoV transmission to health care workers. Although SARS-CoV RNA was occasionally found in ocular specimens during the early phase of illness, its infectivity is unknown.