Infectious Disease in Eye Care, 2020

What is Pink Eye?

Patients often visit our office with “pink eye” or conjunctivitis. As optometry doctors, one of our special skills is to differentiate the underlying cause of any persistent red eye. There are several major causes of a “red eye”:

·         Viral*

·         Bacterial

·         Allergy

·         Contact Lens Issue

·         Chemical

·         Autoimmune

·         Dry Eye

Each underlying cause can vary in degree of severity. We use a combination of your patient history, symtoms and any signs detected when we examine you to reach your diagnosis. Sometimes there can be more than one cause of “red eye” at one time.

*The viral cause of red eye (commonly known as “Pink Eye”) is the most contagious of all eye infections. Epidemic keratoconjunctivitis (EKC) is a highly infectious viral conjunctivitis. Pink eye can cause epidemics and can quickly spread throughout an entire school or workplace.

When we suspect a viral infection, we adopt extensive infection control for any patient suspected of this terrible cause of red eye. We now assume that any patient we see might have EKC or a VIRUS like COVID-19 and could have contaminated the room, and it is this level of room disinfection and sterilization pre- and post- care that we are providing to all patients today and for the foreseeable future in eye care.

Article by The Brown Center, April 12th, 2020