Spanish doctors are now claiming that a new symptom can be used to identify those who have coronavirus.
Reports show that patients who present with nasty purplish lesions that look like chickenpox, measles or chilblains on toes and feet could be a sign of coronavirus.
According to Metro News, patients with the dark sores, particularly children and adolescents, have tested positive for Covid-19 in Spain, as well as in Italy and France.
Up until now, the major symptoms that people have been warned to look out for is a high temperature and a persistent cough.
One of the earliest reported cases was a 13-year-old boy from Italy, who had what was originally thought to have been a violin spider bite. He went to the hospital on March 8 after developing cuts to his skin.
Two days later he developed phenomena, a fever, muscle pains, headache, and intense itching and burning on the foot lesions. Now, one in five patients at Italian hospitals are presenting with the strange dermatological condition.
Lesions usually show up as red sores or swellings on various parts of the body and could be mistaken for bruises in some cases.
A child dermatologist in Bari, Mazzotta Troccoli, said it has become increasingly common throughout Italy.
He wrote: “If further observations and laboratory data will confirm that we are facing a clinical sign of Covid-19, this dermatological sign could be useful for identifying children and adolescents with minimal forms of infection, but potential sources of further infection.”
The Spanish General Council of Official Podiatrist Colleges shared a statement revealing that several coronavirus patients had lesions on their feet.
The statement read: “Numerous cases are being observed in different countries: Italy, France, Spain.
“It is a curious finding that began to spread yesterday in the healthcare field, among dermatologists and podiatrists, fundamentally: the same symptoms are increasingly being detected in patients with Covid-19, especially children and adolescents, although some cases have also been detected in adults.
“They are purple lesions (very similar to those of chickenpox, measles or chilblains) which usually appear on the toes and normally heal without leaving a mark.”
The experts encouraged people to keep an eye out for lesions, saying: “The Council of Podiatrists urges its Colleges and its members to be very vigilant because this may be a sign of COVID-19 detection that can help to avoid contagion.”
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However they also warned that they did not have enough “scientific evidence” yet to say for certain that it was an official symptom of the illness.