VIRAL CONJUNCTIVITIS “THE QUEEN OF SUMMER”

As every year in summer time, many people come to the ophthalmology clinic, patients presenting red eyes, secretions, intraocular foreign body sensation, blurred vision, stinging, tearing, eyelid edema, conjunctival chemosis, subconjunctival hemorrhage …. These are the symptoms. of one of the most typical and feared summer conjunctivitis, epidemic viral keratoconjunctivitis.
In a family environment, there is always a first member who goes to the ophthalmologist’s office with the symptoms and in the following days, the other members of the family begin to go with the same problem.
It is an infection caused by several types of Adenovirus, is highly contagious, and can be associated with respiratory symptoms, pre or retroauricular adenopathies and / or gastroenteritis. These types of infections can occur at any time of the year. It is typical in gated communities, for example kindergartens. It is also very common to be infected in the pools, so there are more cases of conuntivitis in summer. It is characterized by the appearance of subtarsal follicles, and in more than half of the cases because associated corneal lesions of the subepithelial precipitates appear, which in many patients can decrease vision alarmingly.
It can occur in shoots or sporadically. Its transmission is by direct contact with the secretions of an infected person and in turn contact with the eye of the healthy person. It also happens for objects previously contaminated by the person who has conjunctivitis such as sheets, towels … etc.
The hands of infected people should be very clean, it is very important to prevent transmission, especially the first two weeks since the process begins.
The treatment is carried out based on hygienic measures. Daily washing of the secretions with physiological serum, anti-inflammatory eye drops and ophthalmic ointments specific for viruses. Patients with corneal precipitates and decreased vision as a side effect should maintain for a time the use of surface anti-inflammatories that help dissolve them.
It is a very prevalent pathology and with great inconveniences when performing our daily activities, especially on holidays, but if we know its etiology and the way of transmission of this type of eye infection, we will get it at bay.