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Common name: Chickenpox
Scientific name: Varicella-Zoster
Chickenpox is a viral infection caused by the Varicella-Zoster Virus. Being infected with this virus results in thee emergence of a full body rash.

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1) Chicken pox was technically first detected in Ancient Greece, however it was not until 1767 that smallpox and chicken pox were differentiated.
2) The suspected infecting agent was a virus names Varicella-Zoster virus. The virus is extremely contagious.
3) Chicken pox is classified into the category of an acute infectious disease that uses horizontal transmission. An acute infectious disease can be defined as an infection that lives inside a host for short periods of time.

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1) Chicken pox was originally discovered in ancient Greece. It has since then spread globally, affecting virtually every country.
2)Chicken pox is an endemic virus which is never really eradicated but it is rather managed. There is not a recording of the timeline of the original spread, since its origin is not fully defined.
3)The virus roughly infects 4,000,000 people a year. The amount of people infected every year has gone down drastically since the wide adoption of the vaccine.

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Virulence is the harm done by a pathogen to a host following infection. It is essentially the severity of the disease being defined by a mortality rate of 0-100%.
1) At its core, chicken pox does not have high virulence. While it is extremely contagious, for people with a healthy immune system, chicken pox will most likely be short and will not persist long term. However, if you are immunocompromised or pregnant, chicken pox can cause harm to the host.
2) The virulence of chicken pox HAS changed over time, however not to a very high degree. With the widespread implementation of the varicella-zoster vaccine throughout the youth, it has been predicted to have prevented upwards of 100 million cases of chicken pox. While it has affected the virulence by decreasing the mortality rate, it has not been to a huge degree, since the death rate was not particularly high before.

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a) Since chicken pox is not a virulent disease, the only way to handle it is to essentially alleviate the symptoms. Medical professionals prescribed medication for the fever symptoms, and lotions to soothe the itching from the rash. Many medical professionals recommended to expose your child to an infected one, because the symptoms get more severe with age.
b) In 1995, the chicken pox vaccine was introduced to the general public, which resulted in a close to 90% protection against contracting the disease. Since there is only approximately 5% of children who are unvaccinated against this disease, this has created herd immunity for unvaccinated children.
c) Besides the development of the vaccine, the only new technologies applied to chicken pox have been in regards to its transmission. Cryo-EM (Cryo Electron Microscopy) studies the architecture of cells, and has allows researchers to find that fusion is more complicated than previously thought, which is how the infection spreads.

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a) Before the vaccine was administered, Chicken Pox was not something largely handled by the government, as it did not pose a giant threat to most of society, and had a very high recovery rate. Once the vaccine was created in the mid 90s, the government handled the disease by making the vaccine mandatory for young people when they are entering school. This allowed for an almost 91% of children in the United States to be vaccinated against the disease, and has made it almost non-existent among school-going children in today's age.
b) As far as initiatives made to combat the disease: After the widespread normalization of the Varicella-Zoster vaccine among young children, the government began to provide the vaccine in school nurses office. This meant that they could administer the vaccine to children regardless of parental responsibility, and ensure that at least almost every kid within a school would be protected, either by vaccination, or herd immunity.
c) I am not sure there were too many things that could have been done differently in terms of a better response to the disease. While most diseases are met with the thought of isolation as a preventative measure, most parents wanted their children to get it over with while they were young. Since the pre-vaccine chicken pox protocol was to pretty much spread it to as many young people as you know in order to prevent the contraction at an older age, there was not too much leadership control against it.

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a) In terms of the societal impact of this disease, I would say that the largest thing to arise societally from the existence of chicken pox, was in terms of the vaccine invention. Once the vaccine became widely available, it became one of the essential vaccines given to children in their youth. It prevented almost 100 million cases, which in turn decreased the number of hospitalizations and deaths that came with this disease. Getting chicken pox in your youth was not longer the norm, which impacted society in that way.
b) Since the chicken pox was something extremely prevalent in almost everyone's lives before the last couple decades, it is very hard to trace the origin response. In terms of the disease, its existence did not really affect anyone's behaviors, considering the usual protocol was to place a young child in the same vicinity as an infected person, so they would get it while young. Once the vaccine was available, I would assume that if a child were to contract the chicken pox, parents would not longer try and expose their child early, considering they were most likely vaccinated.
c) One aspect that people learned from the chicken pox spread, is how skin rashes usually get worse with irritation. When children were diagnosed with chicken pox, the most important factor for healing was to leave the infection alone, as it is easily irritated. Since the vaccine was one of the most quickly administered and effective, it demonstrated how important vaccination was for infectious disease.

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a) Probably the most revealing aspect that I learned about chicken pox, is its classification in terms of virulence. Before this course, I was unaware of the concept of virulence, and assumed that its meaning had something to do with how contagious a disease was. Upon learning that virulence was defined by the harm done to its host, I was able to discover that this virus has very low virulence. Both pre and post vaccine, chicken pox has had a very low mortality rate. With the vaccine invention, the mortality rate has been able to decrease at a small degree, which has therefore lowered the virulence.
b) Through browsing other people's disease topics on their padlets, I got true insight into the amount of diversity that is present within the community of infectious diseases. Whether that be in terms of virulence, societal response, the type of transmission, or other characteristics, each disease had such a distinct portfolio. Especially due to the recent pandemic, it was interesting to visualize how many epidemics we have undergone as a society, how they have affected us, as well as how they transmit to others.
c) In my research, an interesting thing I came across, is just how contagious chicken pox really are. I was always aware that it was a very contagious disease, but upon learning that someone exposed would transmit it to 90% or more of the people they know, impacted my overview on the degree of transmission. Among this 90%, it is extremely rare that you could be asymptomatic, which varies greatly from other common viruses. I also think it should be included that the vaccine is still not accessible in many third world countries, and while we talk about the disease being largely eradicated, this is not the case in many countries.