Chicken Pox

Chicken Pox Preventing

Chicken pox is an acute and a highly communicable disease and children are mostly the sufferers.

The disease is distributed in the whole world and is found in epidemic and endemic forms.

One episode of an infection in the childhood usually gives a lifelong immunity. However, the child becomes the host to the chicken pox virus and has the chance of suffering from shingles (Herpes Zoster) in the later life.

Although very few children escape this disease until adulthood, a proper preventive measure will lessen the chance of infection among them. If infection is prevented, possibilities of severe complications in the children and adults can be avoided.

As chicken pox is an air borne disease, the best method to prevent transmission is to keep aloof from the persons who are normal but are susceptible to infection.

The infected person should remain home until 10 days from the eruption of the rash or until the sores become crusted. Children should not go to school when they are infected.

Pregnancy and Chicken pox

Particular attention is to be paid to the pregnant mothers, the newborns and the persons having less immunity, so that unnecessary exposure to chicken pox is avoided. However, a pregnant mother who had an infection before her pregnancy can protect her fetus by passing her immunity through the placenta.

Breast feeding also protects the baby from chicken pox in the first few months of its life.

Chicken Pox Preventing

Two other methods that are being used to prevent chicken pox are;

• Varicella Zoster Immunoglobulin (VZIG) - it is recommended within 72 hrs of exposure to chicken pox in the form of an intramuscular shot. Presently the doctors recommend the injection only to those who are immuno-suppressed patients, the high risk children infected with varicella and to the newborns who come in contact with acute cases of chicken pox.
• Chicken pox Vaccine- earlier chicken pox was not considered a major health related issue; therefore, no attempt was made to develop a vaccine. It is only in March 1995, that a live vaccine has been licensed for use in children.
  
  It is recommended that the vaccine should be given to the infants of 12 to 15 months of age and a booster dose in the age of 4 to 6 years. However, there is a dispute about the need for a chicken pox vaccine. According to some, chicken pox is a relatively mild disease and the vaccine is not needed. They believe that it may have devastating results if the disease is deferred from childhood to adulthood, when the disease can be more serious.
  
  Whatever may be the fact, the vaccine is found to be effective in 70% to 85% in controlling mild infection and it is more than 95% effective in prevention of severe form of the disease. Although the vaccine works well, a child can acquire the infection even after he is vaccinated. But the infection occurs in mild form and severe complications can be avoided in the kids who are vaccinated than those who are not immunized but are infected. The individuals who are already infected with chicken pox do not require the vaccine.