Читать книгу Vaccines For Dummies - Sharon Perkins - Страница 32

The varicella virus causes chicken pox. Chicken pox used to be a common infection in children, until vaccination for chicken pox made it uncommon in the United States. In the United Kingdom and other countries, vaccination isn’t routine, so cases are more common.

This virus is most common in children, but more worrisome in adults and especially pregnant women. About 1 in 5,000 infected adults die from chicken pox, but many more adults need to be hospitalized. It is worse in those with weakened immune systems. If most people are vaccinated but a few are not, the average age of infected people grows older. Those few may not come in contact with the virus early on when they are kids, but instead it may take years for them to be infected and they get sick as adults, when the disease is more serious. This can be a problem, and it’s important to be vaccinated.

Varicella looks a lot like measles. Its rash starts first on the abdomen and then spreads. The measles rash starts first on the forehead and face and then spreads. The measles rash is mostly flat, but chicken pox has raised bumps with liquid inside, which become itchy. Both can spread in the air. Both can infect many people quickly if others aren’t immune.

This virus remains in our bodies after we get better. It can stay dormant, or asleep, in our nerves. It can then return many years later as a painful rash in just a small patch on just one side of the body. This is shingles (or herpes zoster), and it only develops in people who have had chicken pox when the virus awakens in one dermatome (or area of skin with nerves coming from one spinal nerve root). Shingles can recur multiple times. If you’ve had chicken pox in the past, the shingles vaccine can prevent this painful disease from affecting you.