Chicken Pox and Shingles Conundrum: New Study

The varicella-zoster virus (VZV) causes two distinct diseases:varicella (i.e. “chickenpox”) and herpes zoster (i.e. “shingles”) [1].Chickenpox, which primarily occurs during childhood, causes anitchy rash for about a week. Complications from chickenpox arerelatively infrequent and include pneumonia, bacterial surinfectionand encephalitis. Shingles predominantly occurs at older age. It isthe result of a reactivation of VZV, which after chickenpox remainslatently present in neural ganglia. This reemergence of the viruscan be assumed to be a consequence of waning cellular immunity.Shingles is characterized by a painful rash on the body and causeson average a more severe and longer-lasting loss of quality of lifethan chickenpox.

 Conclusion

Evidence increasingly suggests that chickenpox vaccination ofchildren risks redistributing health risks toward older generations.  Read Study…