Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 238 views

    Chickenpox

    Uploaded by

    Edward McSweegan, PhD
    The document discusses chickenpox and shingles. It begins by describing the author's experience developing shingles. It then explains that chickenpox causes a dormant viral infection that can later reactivate as shingles. While chickenpox vaccines prevent childhood infections, they also prevent future shingles cases. A new shingles vaccine has been tested and found to prevent around 50% of shingles cases. However, the FDA has delayed approving this vaccine beyond its original deadline.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivs (BY-NC-ND)
    Download as DOC or read online from Scribd

    Chickenpox

    Uploaded by

    Edward McSweegan, PhD
    238 views3 pages
    The document discusses chickenpox and shingles. It begins by describing the author's experience developing shingles. It then explains that chickenpox causes a dormant viral infection that can later reactivate as shingles. While chickenpox vaccines prevent childhood infections, they also prevent future shingles cases. A new shingles vaccine has been tested and found to prevent around 50% of shingles cases. However, the FDA has delayed approving this vaccine beyond its original deadline.

    Copyright

    © Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivs (BY-NC-ND)

    Available Formats

    DOC or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses chickenpox and shingles. It begins by describing the author's experience developing shingles. It then explains that chickenpox causes a dormant viral infection that can later reactivate as shingles. While chickenpox vaccines prevent childhood infections, they also prevent future shingles cases. A new shingles vaccine has been tested and found to prevent around 50% of shingles cases. However, the FDA has delayed approving this vaccine beyond its original deadline.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivs (BY-NC-ND)
    Download as DOC or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc
    238 views3 pages

    Chickenpox

    Uploaded by

    Edward McSweegan, PhD
    The document discusses chickenpox and shingles. It begins by describing the author's experience developing shingles. It then explains that chickenpox causes a dormant viral infection that can later reactivate as shingles. While chickenpox vaccines prevent childhood infections, they also prevent future shingles cases. A new shingles vaccine has been tested and found to prevent around 50% of shingles cases. However, the FDA has delayed approving this vaccine beyond its original deadline.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivs (BY-NC-ND)
    Download as DOC or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc
    of 3

    A Pox with a One-Two Punch

    It began as a slight itch in the center of my back. After a few days, a small red rash

    appeared and the itch became harder to ignore. I had one or two basal cell carcinomas removed

    in the recent past and I wondered if this might be something similar. I went to my doctor to find

    out. One look at the little rash above my spine and she said, “Shingles.”

    Shingles? My grandmother sometimes would complain about those. How could I have

    an aliment most people associated with being old? I’m not that old. Really. But I did have

    chickenpox as a child and that long-forgotten illness had come back to haunt me as shingles.

    Chickenpox, or varicella, is a common childhood infection caused by varicella zoster

    virus (VZV). Chickenpox is extremely contagious, but the disease is usually mild. The virus is

    spread by close contact, droplets and respiratory aerosols. It produces fever, malaise, and

    hundreds of itchy, fluid-filled skin blisters. The blisters (pox) eventually burst and crust over

    and the unfortunate child is no longer contagious. This childhood illness is such a right of

    passage that parents have been known to hold “pox parties” in order to expose their children and

    get the infection over with early in life.

    Despite pox parties, chickenpox is not an entirely benign infection. Each year an

    estimated four million cases lead to lost school and work time, 11,000 hospitalizations, and some

    deaths. Eight adults and children died in the U.S. from chickenpox during 2003 and 2004.

    There was not much anyone could do about chickenpox until the Food and Drug

    Administration (FDA) approved a vaccine called Varivax in 1995. The federal Advisory

    Committee on Immunization Practices quickly recommended it for all children. The vaccine

    consists of a weakened form of VZV and is given in one or two doses depending on the age of

    the child.

    1
    Many states now require the vaccine, or proof of prior chickenpox, for all students

    entering the school system. Maryland, for example, requires chickenpox vaccination or proof of

    prior infection for all students entering public schools and pre-school programs

    (www.aahealth.org).

    Do we really need another mandatory vaccine, especially one for a disease that is so mild

    and causes so few deaths? Good question. Besides, once a person has had chickenpox they

    usually have life-long immunity against it. But the chickenpox virus is a strange virus. Even

    after you get over it and develop immunity, you still never really get rid of the virus. And that

    brings me back to my case of shingles.

    After a chickenpox infection the virus goes into hiding. Unfortunately, it usually hides

    within sensory nerve cells near the spinal cord. Then as you and your immune system age the

    virus reappears. It multiples, causing pain and itching, and damages the nerve cells. A blistering

    rash appears in the same area of the skin. This rash is called shingles or herpes zoster.

    The pain from shingles can be quite severe and can persist for weeks or months. People

    with shingles are also contagious to those who have not had chickenpox or been vaccinated.

    Treatment for shingles consists of oral antiviral drugs such as acyclovir, famciclovir and

    valaciclovir. These drugs help to control the pain and reduce the chances of spreading the

    infection to others. The chickenpox vaccine is intended to prevent chickenpox in childhood, but

    it also has the added benefit of preventing shingles later on in life.

    What about those of us who had chickenpox as kids and are now adults walking around

    with dormant chickenpox virus waiting to re-appear as shingles? Running to the doctor is the

    only current opinion, but a new vaccine could help to combat the painful blistering of shingles.

    2
    An experimental shingles vaccine has been tested in adults and found to prevent about

    fifty percent of shingles cases. The vaccine (Zostavax) consists of a single injection of a

    weakened form of the varicella-zoster virus. In addition to reducing the incidence of shingles,

    the vaccine also reduced the severity of shingles.

    It could be a very popular vaccine among middle-aged adults and the elderly. If it gets

    approved by the FDA. The regulatory agency was supposed to make a decision by February 23,

    but a new deadline has been set for May 25. It’s unclear what led to the delay, but one health

    care analyst recently told the Associated Press the FDA is “bordering on being dysfunctional”

    due to staffing and political problems. Or maybe no one on the FDA advisory panel has ever had

    shingles.

    You might also like