Chickenpox is a highly contagious and very common disease that is often described as one of the “classic” children’s diseases, because so many people suffer from it during their childhood. Rare but serious complications can result from the disease, requiring immediate medical treatment attention. The best way to avoid chickenpox is be immunized against the disease. The most common symptoms of chickenpox are headache, fever, stomach ache, and a loss of appetite, followed by an itchy rash of blisters, which usually lasts for 2 to 4 days.
Chickenpox is caused by the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), also known as human herpes virus 3 (HHV-3), which is a member of the herpes family and is known to cause herpes zoster (shingles) in adults.
Chickenpox is a highly contagious disease, and the chickenpox virus can be spread by a variety of methods including direct contact, droplet transmission, and airborne transmission.
Some children who have been vaccinated may develop a mild case of chickenpox as a result of the vaccination. However, these children usually have much milder symptoms, only develop a few dozen chickenpox blisters, and recover far more quickly that unvaccinated chickenpox sufferers. These mild, post-vaccination cases of chickenpox are still highly contagious.
If a person is infected with chickenpox, the symptoms and blisters usually appear between 10 and 21 days later. However, people become contagious 1 to 2 days before the rash and blisters appear, and remain contagious while any un-crusted blisters remain.
Once you have suffered chickenpox, the virus usually remains in your body for your entire lifetime, but it is kept under control by your immune system. About 10% of adults may experience shingles (which is caused by chickenpox virus) when the virus manages to fight back and become active during periods of stress, particularly later in life.
Children under 10 years of age are the most common sufferers of chickenpox. For these children, the disease is usually mild, although some serious complications can develop in very rare cases. Adults and older children usually develop chickenpox with more severe symptoms.
Children under one year of age, whose mothers have had chickenpox or have been vaccinated for chickenpox, are unlikely to catch the disease because the of the immunity they obtained from their mothers. If they do catch the disease, then it is usually a very mild case. However, children under one year of age, whose mothers have not had chickenpox and have not been vaccinated for chickenpox, or whose inborn immunity has already waned, can develop severe cases of the disease.
Children suffering from other skin problems, such as eczema or recent sunburn, may get more than 1,500 chickenpox blisters, but in children without these skin conditions, usually only 250-500 blisters develop.
Serious and severe complications are more likely in those who immune systems have already been compromised and weakened by disease, medicines, or treatments such as chemotherapy. Some of the most severe cases of chickenpox have witnessed in children who have taken steroids (for example, to treat asthma) before they have developed any symptoms during the incubation period of the disease.
