"Don't scratch yourself, otherwise I'll put gloves on you!"
Some children remember their chickenpox, the terrible itching it caused, and the impossible parental injunction.
For the vast majority of them, this very common childhood illness leaves no trace or serious memory.
But after 50 years, the varicella-zoster virus (VZV, for varicella-zoster virus) remembers 15 to 20% of French people in the form of shingles, synonymous with sometimes terrible pain that can continue for years.
How can one virus cause two very different diseases?
Decoding.
Chickenpox
"It corresponds to the primary infection by VZV
," explains Prof. Nadine Attal, neurologist at Ambroise-Paré hospital (AP-HP), in Boulogne-Billancourt.
In other words, chickenpox is the disease caused by the first exposure of an individual to this virus. ”
During the incubation phase, from 10 to 21 days, the virus spreads throughout the body to reappear, after multiplication, in ...
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