Is contact with a person sick with the shingles virus contagious? In which cases is shingles contagious and how is shingles contagious in children? Here are answers to these and other questions about this virus.
Shingles is also known as Herpes Zoster, Shingles. Shingles is a disease caused by the activity of a virus from the herpes family known as Varicella zoster. The varicella zoster virus is also the virus that causes chicken pox. This virus apparently remains in our body. When the immune system weakens and other factors affect our body and the virus, the virus that previously caused that patient to get chickenpox, awakens and causes shingles. That is, in order for a person to get shingles, he must first be infected with chicken pox.
Is shingles virus contagious?
A person with shingles – herpes zoster is not contagious at the risk of transmitting shingles, but may infect those exposed to it with herpes zoster which may lead to chicken pox. A person with shingles can only infect someone who has not had chicken pox with the herpes zoster virus, which will cause that person who has not yet had chicken pox to contract this disease.
People who have had chicken pox in the past are at risk of getting shingles as they get older. And if they are sick or suffer from conditions in which their immune system is in an abnormal state, such as in the case of immune deficiency syndrome or cancer diseases and treatments for other diseases, such as steroid therapy or drugs that weaken the immune system, such as chemotherapy. It is important to know that there is a vaccine for people over the age of 50 to prevent herpes zoster. Also receiving a vaccine against chicken pox, apparently significantly reduces the risk of herpes zoster.
How is shingles contagious in children? A person with shingles should be treated as if he were a child with chicken pox and could be infected with chicken pox. However, a child who has already had chickenpox is at a very low risk of contracting chickenpox and rubella again later. The development of shingles in children is not common at all.