Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Varicella zoster virus (VZV) is a highly contagious human pathogen.Virus causes varicella (chickenpox) as a primary infection during which a lifelong latent infection is established.It is easily passed through airborne particles, droplets in exhaled air and fluids from blisters or sores.Virus can be also transmitted indirectly by a contact with articles of clothing and other items exposed to virus (1).Around 45,000 cases of varicella are reported each year in the Czech Republic, which makes it the most frequent type of virus infection.The group infected most frequently in our temperate climate are children under 10 years of age (2).In adults, complications are more frequent in pregnant women, with negative consequences for the foetus and the newborns, and in immunocompromised people with an increased risk of mortality.Immunocompromised patients may develop severe skin eruptions with or without hemorrhage.Healing of the cutaneous lesions takes longer than in the general population.Patients often develop high fever.Virus spreads to visceral organs causing hepatitis, pneumonitis, pancreatitis, and encephalitis.Bacterial superinfections (Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Staphylococcus aureus) including bacteremia can develop (3).A lifelong latent infection can reactivate, typically after the age of fifty, to cause herpes zoster (shingles).Herpes zoster occurs frequently in adults, but is not uncommon in immunocompromised and even normal children.In addition herpes zoster could be responsible for a wide spectrum of serious health complications.Immunocompromised patients can experience more severe forms of the disease.Lesions form for up to 2 weeks after infection and scabbing occurs until 3 to 4 weeks into the course of the disease.Patients with lymphoproliferative malignancies are at risk of cutaneous dissemination and visceral involvement, including pneumonitis, hepatitis, and meningoencephalitis.Around ten percent of patients with HIV can be infected with zoster.These patients can develop chronic herpes zoster, with formation of new lesions without healing of the already existing ones (4).From 2009 to 2016, we examined 1,074 out-and inpatients with varicella (623 patients, 2.9% of immunocompromised) or herpes zoster (451 patients, 7.9% of immunocompromised) treated in the Faculty Hospital Hradec Králové.Characterization of individual short VZV DNA sequences was performed utilizing PCR and sequencing.Single nucleotide
DOI: 10.21101/cejph.a4307
Authors: Vanda Boštíková, Radek Sleha, Pavel Boštík
Institutions: University of Hradec Králové, University of Defence
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2571665252