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 Fand 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.