Chickenpox making the rounds in TT

CHICKENPOX, a highly infectious illness that causes itchy rashes, has been making the rounds in this country of late. The adult and paediatric Priority Care Facilities (PCF) at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) last month reported an “upsurge” in cases that are only now “tapering off.” Most of the chicken pox cases were among children. Private physicians have also been seeing cases of the disease. Chickenpox is caused by the Herpes Zoster virus which is spread by direct contact with broken chickenpox blisters or by inhaling infected airborne droplets. Director of the Adult PCF, Dr Helmer Hilwig, defined an upsurge as one case daily or every three days. He said one case every month was “normal.”

Hilwig said while cases of chicken pox are sporadic in large territories, locally the disease will occur in “waves.” There will be people who have not been exposed as children who can become infected. “Contact with outsiders normally increases at Christmas and Carnival,” Hilwig said. Symptoms during the first six days include a group of small, red, very itchy spots appearing in batches on the chest, the abdomen, back and later on other parts of the body. The fluid within the spots can become white or cloudy. There may be a slight fever. Symptoms appear two to three weeks after infection. From the fifth to ninth day, the spots will burst, leaving small craters. Scabs then form and drop off after a few days.

The patient usually recovers by the tenth day. There is a vaccine available for chickenpox. Hilwig said medication would only be effective during the first 48-72 hours of the appearance of blisters. After infection, the virus remains dormant in the nervous system and is kept suppressed by the immune system. The virus can become active at any time later in life causing shingles, a painful nerve inflammation. While chickenpox is generally harmless, Dr Hilwig warned that there could be complications in adults especially the elderly, and immunosuppressed individuals, such as children with leukaemia. Some adults can develop encephalitis (infection of the brain) and pneumonia as a result of the disease.