Volume 24, Issue 104, July - August, 2020

Profile of viral skin infections encountered among Albaha King Fahd Hospital attendants: A hospital-based study

Hasan S. Al-Ghamdi¹, Abuobaida E.E. Abukhelaif^2♦, Ihab Shafek Atta³

¹Internal Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Baha University, Saudi Arabia
²Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Baha University, Saudi Arabia
³Pathology department, Faculty of medicine, Albaha University, Saudi Arabia, Pathology department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Assuit ,Egypt.

^♦Corresponding author
Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Baha University, Saudi Arabia; Email: abukhelaif@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Background: Viral infections of the skin are widespread, highly contagious, and often recurring, though the most life-threatening are preventable with vaccinations. The frequently encountered causes for the viral skin diseases are like herpes simplex, herpes zoster (shingles), warts, and molluscum contagiosum. The present study aimed to describe viral skin infections and to characterise their epidemiology, clinical features and diagnosis, seen at the dermatologist’s clinic tertiary hospital at area of Albaha; Saudi Arabia. Methodology: our study was an observational, retrospective cross-sectional study in which archives of records of three years (i.e. January, 2017 to December, 2019) 963 records of referred patients to dermatologist’s clinic of King Fahd Hospital (KFH), Albaha, KSA; were revised to extrapolate clinically diagnosed cases of viral skin diseases over the study period. Results: Regarding the type of viral skin lesions, encountered among our study population our study revealed that the viral wart was the most common type (62.6%), followed by herpes zoster (20.8%), Molluscum contagiosum (8.6%), Chickenpox (5.4%) and Herpes simplex (2.6%). Conclusion: Further studies are needed to consider in more details the possible causes of the increasing viral disease. Again, it is very important to raise alertness among healthcare providers regarding the importance of completing the patient’s reports.

Keywords: Viral skin diseases, dermatology, Albaha, Saudi Arabia

Medical Science, 2020, 24(104), 2259-2266

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