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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Chickenpox is very contagious. If one person has it, up to 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected. Chickenpox can also be serious, even life-threatening, especially in babies, adolescents, adults, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems. Before the vaccine was available, about 4 million people got chickenpox each year in the United States, over 10,500 of those people were hospitalized, and about 100-150 people died.

Chickenpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the varicella-zoster virus (VZV). It can cause an itchy, blister-like rash. The rash appears first on the chest, back, and face, and then spreads over the entire body.

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Learn more about chickenpox, a highly contagious disease caused by varicella-zoster virus (VZV). It can cause an itchy, blister-like rash.

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Chickenpox is an incredibly contagious viral disease caused by the varicella-zoster virus. Varicella-zoster virus is also known as human herpes virus 3, it's one of the nine other herpes viruses that can infect human beings. It causes an itchy, blister-like rash that starts off in one area then slowly spreads over the entire body.

More Information: https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/about/index.html

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Varicella-Zoster Virus (VZV). This is a DNA virus that belongs to one of the nine herpes virus. After the first infection, the VZV stays in the body in the sensory nerve ganglia, as a latent infection. Latent infections stay hidden in your body, showing no symptoms. VZV also causes the shingles. Someone can get only get shingles is if they had chickenpox first.

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Chickenpox usually lasts from 4-7 days. It starts off as a rash that turns into fluid filled blisters, which eventually turn into scabs. Typical symptoms before the rashes appear are:

fever

tiredness/fatigue

loss of appetite

headache

Even those who are vaccinated against chickenpox, can still get the viral disease through someone who may have it. However, their symptoms would be mild compared to those who don't have their vaccination.

Some serious complications that can arise from chickenpox are:

bacterial infections of soft tissue and skin

infection of the lungs (also known as pneumonia)

infection or swelling of the brain (encephalitis, cerebellar ataxia)

bleeding complications (such as hemorrhagic problems)

dehydration

blood steam infections (sepsis)

If anybody has any of these signs while having chickenpox, they must be hospitalized as soon as possible. Due to the vaccination, death is very rare. But to those who haven't been vaccinated for this disease, death may occur.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Complications from chickenpox can occur, but they are not common in healthy people who get the disease.

People who may get a serious case of chickenpox and may be at high risk for complications include:

Infants

Adolescents

Adults

People who are pregnant

People with bodies that have a lowered ability to fight germs and sickness (weakened immune systems) because of illness or medications, for example,

People with HIV/AIDS or cancer

Patients who have had transplants, and

People on chemotherapy, immunosuppressive medications, or long-term use of steroids.

Serious complications from chickenpox include:

Bacterial infections of the skin and soft tissues in children, including Group A streptococcal infections

Infection of the lungs (pneumonia)

Infection or swelling of the brain (encephalitis, cerebellar ataxia)

Bleeding problems (hemorrhagic complications)

Bloodstream infections (sepsis)

Dehydration

Some people with serious complications from chickenpox can become so sick that they need to be hospitalized. Chickenpox can also cause death.

Deaths are very rare now due to the vaccine program. However, some deaths from chickenpox continue to occur in healthy, unvaccinated children and adults. In the past, many of the healthy adults who died from chickenpox contracted the disease from their unvaccinated children.

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Learn more about chickenpox complications. People more at risk include infants, adolescents, adults, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems.

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Pubmed cite- "Varicella incidence per 100,000 population"

These are from states that reported varicella cases to CDC before administering the varicella vaccination program.

Overall, Varicella declined by 97.4% from 1993-1995 to 2013-2014 range. This virus was responsible for more than 4 million infections in the US. In 1970s, Michiaki Takahashi along with his colleagues discovered a vaccine in Japan which is now used worldwide.

More information: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29173081/

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Jana Shaw, MD; "earned her MD from Masaryk University, MPH from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and MS in immunology from Weizmann Institute of Science." (https://www.upstate.edu/healthcare/providers/doctor.php?docID=shawja#:~:text=She%20earned%20her%20MD%20from,infectious%20disease%20fellowship%20at%20Johns ) From there she earned her residency in pediatrics from SUNY Stony Brook!

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Chickenpox and Shingles (Varicella-Zoster Virus)

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The best way to prevent getting the chickenpox is to be vaccinated!

Ever since the Varicella Vaccination program has begun, there has been a decrease of 97% of chickenpox cases.

At home treatments:

Calamine lotion

Cool bath with baking soda

Uncooked oatmeal (to help with the itching)

try keeping fingernails short to minimize scratching

wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with warm water and soap

Over-the-counter medications:

Do not use aspirin or aspirin containing medication! (usage of aspirin while having chickenpox causes Reyes syndrome which affects liver and brain)

Avoid using ibuprofen as well (associated with severe bacterial skin infections)

Stick to acetaminophen to relieve fever

There are antiviral medications that can be prescribed from a doctor. But it's recommended for people who may have serious complications, such as:

people with chronic lung or skin disease

people receiving long term steroid therapy or salicylate therapy

people who are pregnant

people with a weakened immune system

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Chickenpox vaccine is safe and effective at preventing the disease.

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Varicella-Zoster's genome is a double stranded DNA whereas, COVID and Influenza are single stranded.

The two-dose vaccination offers more than 90% protection from Varicella-Zoster.

Although, chickenpox may go away after a week. Varicella-Zoster will still remain in your body since it is one of the nine herpes virus. Throughout your lifetime it may "awaken" or not.

Kids may develop Shingles after Chickenpox but the percentage increases drastically as they age past 50. So, the Shingles tend to affect older adults more.

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In July 2021, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presentation obtained by the press noted that the delta variant of COVID-19 "is as transmissible as chickenpox."

As some researchers have pointed out, the CDC's comparison was an overstatement. Based on various studies and projections, on average a person infected with the delta strain of COVID-19 can infect six or seven people, whereas someone infected with chickenpox can infect nine or 10. Nonetheless, both diseases are highly contagious, although the viruses that cause them are very different.

Chickenpox and shingles stem from the same virus

I became painfully aware of the virus that causes chickenpox a few years ago when my husband developed shingles soon after starting a stressful job. Chronic stress is one trigger for reactivation of the dormant virus, as it is for the closely related herpes viruses.

The virus that causes both chickenpox and shingles, varicella-zoster, is only known to infect humans. "Varicella" means " little variola," or little smallpox, because both diseases cause skin blisters.

Shingles is known in medical terms as herpes zoster. Both "zoster" and "shingles" derive from words for belt or girdle in Greek and Latin, respectively, referring to the typical arrangement of blisters on the torso during shingles outbreaks.

Chickenpox is primarily a childhood disease

In healthy children, chickenpox lasts about a week and goes away without medical intervention. But it can be more severe in adolescents, adults and people with compromised immune systems. Infection with chickenpox typically provides lifelong immunity to reinfection.

Shingles mostly affects older adults

Even after the chickenpox blisters are gone, the varicella-zoster virus is not. The viruses travel to nerve root clusters located along the spinal cord. There, the viruses establish a persistent, dormant state in the nuclei of the nerve cells.

Over the course of a person's life, the viruses may reactivate, but usually the immune system eliminates the active viruses before they can appear as shingles. However, as the immune system weakens with age, or as a result of illness or stress, reactivated viruses can travel back along the nerves and erupt again as painful blisters. Typically, only one nerve-root cluster is involved, and the blisters appear in the area of the skin supplied by those nerves. This leads to the classic belt-like appearance, although the blisters can localize to other areas of the skin.

Although even children can develop shingles, the risk of that happening and the severity of the disease increases sharply after the age of 50. The CDC estimates that 1 in 3 people in the U.S. will have shingles at some point in their lives. In healthy adults, a shingles outbreak typically lasts from seven to 10 days; however, about 15% of shingles sufferers develop persistent, often debilitating, neurological pain, called postherpetic neuralgia, that can last for months or even years.

Varicella-zoster has a long, slow evolutionary history

Unlike the COVID-19 and influenza viruses, which have genomes of single-stranded RNA, varicella-zoster's genome is double-stranded DNA. This makes its genome more stable and able to be copied more accurately than single-stranded RNA genomes.

Recent DNA analysis of varicella-zoster strains currently infecting humans complicates this history somewhat. The data indicates that the virus is accumulating mutations faster than would be consistent with its evolutionary history, and that the ancestor of the current strains appeared only about 8,000 years ago. Such discrepancies between short-term and long-term evolutionary rates have appeared in numerous similar studies, and scientists are currently analyzing why this is so.

The ability to enter a latent state may have given varicella-zoster a survival advantage. Ancient hunter-gatherers would have lived in small groups where an outbreak of chickenpox could have infected the whole population. A credible theory proposed by Charles Grose, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Iowa, holds that, since chickenpox conveys lifelong immunity, the survivors could not be reinfected. And without new hosts, the virus would die out. However, by persisting for years in survivors in its latent state, varicella-zoster could reappear after a new generation of children was born. Since the shingles blisters are infectious, these children would get chickenpox and a new cycle would begin.

Vaccines for chickenpox and shingles are effective

Prior to 1995, when the chickenpox vaccine was introduced, nearly all U.S. children got infected with chickenpox by age 10. Although usually mild, rare complications resulted in more than 10,000 hospitalizations and 100 deaths per year.

The chickenpox vaccine is a live, attenuated varicella-zoster strain that, like the original strain, stays in the body in a dormant state. But the vaccine strain is weakened for activation, and as of 2016 data show that children vaccinated for chickenpox develop shingles less frequently than children did when chickenpox was common. Public health experts do not yet know whether the rate of vaccine-derived shingles will rise as the vaccinated population ages and becomes more susceptible to the disease.

Shingrix, an effective, protein-based vaccine against shingles, has been available since 2017. The CDC recommends everyone over age 50 to get vaccinated for shingles, whether or not they have had chickenpox, shingles or have been vaccinated with Zostavax-a former shingles vaccine that was less effective. Shingrix reduces the incidence of shingles an average of 97% and, if a case occurs, reduces the incidence of postherpetic neuralgia by 91%.

Vaccination requires two doses and is known, so far, to be protective for at least 10 years. As of 2018, 34.5% of U.S. adults 60 and over were vaccinated against shingles, most with Zostavax.

With effective vaccines against both chickenpox and shingles now available, I believe that the countries with high vaccination rates could eventually be free of both of the diseases caused by varicella-zoster-ultimately making the chickenpox-shingles duo go the way of the dinosaurs.

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The chickenpox virus has a fascinating evolutionary history that continues to affect peoples' health today

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IU Biology news: The chickenpox virus has a fascinating evolutionary history that continues to affect peoples' health today.