If you’ve had COVID-19, you may want to have your eyes checked. SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease, can infect the inside of your eyes, according to research published in April in the journal PLOS Pathogens . This holds true even if the virus didn’t enter your body through the surface of your eyes.
Pawan Kumar Singh, PhD , an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine , led a team of researchers who found that inhaled viruses can reach highly protected organs such as the eyes, potentially causing long-term damage. SARS-CoV-2 does so by breaching the blood-retinal barrier , layers of cells that shield the retina , the part of your eye that senses light, from microbial pathogens. “Earlier, researchers were primarily focused on the ocular surface exposure of the virus,” Singh said in a news release .
“However, our findings reveal that SARS-CoV-2 not only reaches the eye during systemic infection but induces a hyperinflammatory response in the retina and causes cell death in the blood-retinal barrier. The longer viral remnants remain in the eye, the risk of damage to the retina and visual function increases.” Using a humanized mice model, Singh and his team showed that the prolonged presence of SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins can cause problems such as: “For those who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, we recommend you ask your ophthalmologist to check for signs of pathological changes to the retina,” Singh sai.
