Why do adults get chicken pox?

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Chicken pox is a disease that causes rashes on the body. This will lead further to serious illness. The symptoms are observed severely in adults than in children. Chicken pox generally occurs in pregnant women and people who have poor immune system. Chicken pox is a disease caused by the virus known as Varicella-zoster. When any one is infected with this virus, his body generates antibodies to this virus. These antibodies generate lifelong immunity in the body. Most of the children get chicken pox. But, it is not common for the adults to suffer from this disease.

Chicken pox symptoms occur severely in adults than in children. The days in which the disease prevails will pass very uncomfortably. Adult women get chicken pox when they are pregnant and if they come in contact with any person with the disease. When the disease has cleared up in the child, the active virus still remains dormant in the body sometimes. It will get re-activated sometime in the adulthood and causes a condition called ‘shingles,.

The complications appear to be occurring more in adulthood. Chicken pox can cause encephalitis, or pneumonia or wheezing or rapid breathing after 3-4 days after the rash appearance for the first time. Though the percentage of adults that get affected with chicken pox are very less, the percent that die due to this disease among them will be about 55 percent and the percent undergoing hospitalization will be 33 percent.

Adults face the complications of chicken pox with a bacterial infection. The bacteria that can enhance the chicken pox complications in adults are those that infect soft tissues. Bacterial infections in the bone, pneumonia, at joints, and toxic shock syndrome will lead to further viral infection in adults. The other conditions in the adult that can result in causing chicken pox are brain infection, problems in bleeding and cerebella ataxia. Adults get easily affected when they come in contact with the people who live in the environment where there is easy transmission of chicken pox.

Author: Hari M

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