Coexistence of herpesviridae family viruses in vesicular skin lesions of COVID-19 patients

During the world pandemic coronavirus disease (COVID-19), an increase in herpesvirus infections has been observed in patients with COVID-19. We describe 3 patients with atypical clinical presentations of herpesvirus infection. In two of them we demonstrated the presence of several members of the Herpesviridae family in the same skin lesion, and in the other we found the coexistence of herpes simplex virus and varicella zoster virus. These coexistences are highly infrequent findings and hardly described in the literature. All our patients had lymphopenia. Since SARS-CoV-2 virus infection characteristically produces lymphopenia, we wondered whether COVID-19 may play a role as a predisposing factor to herpesvirus infections.