Guillain-Barré syndrome and COVID-19: association or coincidence

COVID-19 is a novel disease best known to cause a cough, fever and respiratory failure. Recently, it has been recognised that COVID-19 may present in multi-systemic ways which can cause diagnostic uncertainty or error. We present a patient who attended hospital with features of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) before developing clinical and radiological findings of COVID-19. While the authors recognise that neurological complications have been reported following COVID-19 infection, to their knowledge this report describes a unique presentation of GBS without preceding COVID-19 symptoms. Since these conditions may have considerable overlapping features including respiratory failure and (following prolonged critical care admission) profound weakness, it is possible that one diagnosis may be overlooked. Raising awareness of a possible association between these conditions is important so both are considered allowing appropriate investigations to be arranged to optimise the chance of neurological recovery and survival, while also protecting staff from potentially unrecognised COVID-19.