Psoriasis, COVID-19 and shielding

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic has presented clinicians managing immune‐mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) such as psoriasis, with many challenges. Patients with severe psoriasis have an increased prevalence of risk factors for severe COVID‐19 including obesity, hypertension, diabetes and male sex. Moreover, many systemic treatments for psoriasis are known to increase the risk of severe infection. Therefore, it is understandable that in the early stages of the pandemic, patients on conventional targeted systemic therapies were considered to be at higher risk of severe COVID‐19 infection. In addition to risk‐mitigating behaviours such as social distancing recommended by the World Health Organization, those who were thought to be more vulnerable, for instance those on immunosuppressants, were advised to adopt stricter measures of social isolation including distancing themselves from other members of their household. There was a pressing need to establish whether patients on immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory medications should continue on their medications.

Rights

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Cite as

Downloadable citations

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/bjd.20055

Repository URI

http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/237300/