Doctors refer chickenpox or chickenpox to the group of “childhood” diseases, because usually suffer from it in children under 10 years old. Chickenpox is transmitted by airborne droplets (downwind) during communication and is an acute infectious disease. Therefore, if one of the children becomes ill with chickenpox, then for two or three months, 85-90% of the children’s collective will become ill with it, whether it be a kindergarten or a school. With chickenpox, a person develops a lifelong immunity, and repeated infections with this virus are very rare.
It is difficult to find a person who does not know how chickenpox is transmitted. Its official name “chicken pox" is due to the fact that the outward rashes are very reminiscent of a terrible disease, although it has nothing to do with it. The causative agent of this disease is the Varicella-Zoster virus from the herpes family. This virus is transmitted only by airborne droplets and dies in a few minutes when it is in the environment. The problem is that if you know how chickenpox is transmitted, it is impossible to limit contacts with carriers of infection at the right time. After all, a child who has chickenpox becomes a peddler of infection long before the moment when he has rashes. The contact has already taken place and, alas, the process has gone further. And only 14-16 days after contact, the first signs of the disease can appear.
Chickenpox disease symptoms have the following:
• high temperature appears;
• poor health, fatigue, irritability;
• there is a lack of appetite;
• headache, sore throat.
Rashes, as a rule, appear 1-2 days later than the first signs of the disease in the form of red swollen spots. These spots pass into the bubbles, upon rupture of which liquid flows. After healing, the bubbles are covered with a dry crust.
Within 1-2 days, the red spot passes through all the intermediate stages from the blister to the dry crust, but in severe cases of the disease, the number of such vesicles constantly increases due to new rashes. They can not be squeezed out or combed. The course of the disease is exacerbated by getting into a combed wound of a skin infection, which may lead to the formation of scars and scars in the place of blisters. Especially often this complication occurs in small children.
Oddly enough, the disease in adults proceeds in a more severe form, and complications more often arise. Particularly dangerous are bacterial complications, such as encephalitis, which, although in rare cases, can be fatal. Chickenpox refers to infectious diseases, which it is desirable to get sick precisely in childhood, so that a person develops immunity for life.
Above, we examined how chickenpox is transmitted. But it is also worth knowing that the same Varicella-Zoster virus is the cause of such a disease as shingles. And if a person has had chickenpox in childhood, he is protected by immunity from repeated chickenpox disease, including infection with herpes zoster.
To prevent the development of complications in European countries, doctors recommend that children be vaccinated against chickenpox. But vaccination cannot give lifelong immunity. In the adult state, the disease of chickenpox can be more dangerous than in children. In Russia, doctors do not support the idea of vaccinating children against chickenpox. Although, when planning pregnancy for women who have not been ill since childhood, the vaccine against chickenpox can do good, because complications after illness during pregnancy can affect the health of an unborn child.
That's all I would like to say briefly about how chickenpox is transmitted and how to recognize this disease.