BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) infection in pregnant women can cause complications for the mother and fetus. The aim of this study was to assess the immunity against VZV among young women before marriage. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this cross-sectional study 250 women attending health centers in Sanandaj, Iran, for pre-marital medical check-up were randomly selected. The...

see how the fate of the goddess had evolved following the eradication of her raison d’etre. Attendants at the shrine informed me that she continues to function, but as the goddess of chickenpox. In Bengali, the word for smallpox is also used for the spring season—boshonto, pronounced “bawshontaw”—an association that arises from the seasonality of smallpox epidemics in Bengal prior to the eradic...

Herpes zoster (shingles) is rare in children with no history of chickenpox but can occur when their mothers are infected with the virus during pregnancy. In such cases, herpes zoster generally presents after the first year of life after maternal immunoglobulin (Ig) G antibodies have disappeared from the child’s blood. Disseminated pediatric herpes zoster is an unusual condition. We present the ...

Varicella-zoster virus causes two distinct clinical diseases. Primary infection causes varicella or chickenpox in children and reactivation of infection causes herpes zoster (shingles) mostly among the elderly. The virus is a member of the herpesvirus family, restricted in its infective range to humans. Although chickenpox and shingles have been recognised for centuries, changes in population d...

Chickenpox is a highly contagious airborne disease caused by Varicella zoster, which affects nearly all non-immune children worldwide with an annual incidence estimated at 80-90 million cases. To analyze the spatiotemporal pattern of the chickenpox incidence in the city of Valencia, Spain two complementary statistical approaches were used. First, we evaluated the existence of clusters and spati...

Seven outbreaks of disease characterized by a pustular rash and suspected to have been caused by human monkeypox virus were investigated. The outbreaks occurred between February and August 2001 in the province of Equateur in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreaks involved a total of 31 persons and caused five deaths. Specimens from 14 patients were available and were analyzed by electr...

The mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes syndrome (MELAS) is a rare congenital disorder of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Herein we report a case of MELAS, whose second stroke-like episode was provoked by chickenpox. A point mutation at nucleotide (nt) 3243 in mtDNA supported the diagnosis of MELAS in this case. History of myopathy, the presence of lesio...

Correspondence: Cahide Yılmaz, MD, Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi, Tıp Fakultesi, Çocuk Hastalıkları AD, Van, Türkiye Tel: 904322176128, Fax: 904322150479 E-mail: [email protected] Neurological complications caused by chickenpox are estimated as approximately 0.01%0.03%. Frequent complications related to central nerve system involvement are cerebellar ataxia and encephalitis, and rare complicat...

Optic neuritis as a complication of varicella infection is rarely encountered. We hereby report a case of a 3-year-old immunocompetent boy who presented with sudden bilateral vision loss with recurrent generalised seizures and myoclonus four weeks after eruption of lesions of chickenpox. Ophthalmologic examination revealed only light perception in both the eyes with normal fundus examination, b...

A 7.5 year old boy, known to have a seizure disorder, presented with an infarct in the left middle cerebral artery territory, 10 weeks after severe chickenpox. Immunofluorescent antibody titre to the varicella zoster virus in the cerebrospinal fluid was 1:32. Cerebral angiography showed evidence of focal vasculitis. He presented again seven months later with an acute exacerbation of seizures. M...