VARICELLA ZOSTER ANTIBODY, IGG

Chickenpox (Varicella) is an acute, generalized viral disease with sudden onset of slight fever, mild constitutional symptoms and a skin eruption, which is maculopapular for a few hours, vesicular for 3-4 days, and leaves a granular scab. Scabs from varicella lesions are not infective. The disease is rarely fatal. Chickenpox is endemic in the United States and generally affects children in the primary school bracket ( 5 – 8 years). Adults, adolescents and newborns are also susceptible to infection.Shingles (Herpes zoster) is a local manifestation of recurrent, recrudescent or reactivation infection with the virus that causes chickenpox. Person affected with Herpes zoster have erythematous, maculopapular areas which develop over an area of skin served by an afferent nerve. Single or clumps of vesicles then appear, usually accompanied by pain, which, in some cases, can be extreme. It is a disease primarily of adults. The mode of transmission is person to person by direct contact, droplet or airborne spread of secretions of the respiratory tract of chickenpox cases or of the vesicle fluid of patients with herpes zoster; indirectly through articles freshly soiled by discharges from vesicles and mucous membranes of infected patients.