Prevention of chickenpox
Chickenpox is considered a mild childhood infection by many people, because for most children it is mild, causing only slight discomfort due to itchy rash. However, in some cases, such a disease is better avoided, so information on how not to get chickenpox, if not sick, interests many parents.
How is chickenpox transmitted
This well-known childhood infection is very contagious, since when in contact with a sick baby, people without immunity fall sick in 90-100% of cases, even if they were only 5-10 minutes away at a distance of 20 meters. The virus that causes chickenpox is transmitted from airborne patients with particles of mucus when they cough, sneeze and breathe normally.
The situation is complicated by the fact that a sick person begins to isolate the pathogen at a time when he has no symptoms — on the last day of the incubation period. In addition, a child with chickenpox is contagious during the entire period of the appearance of rashes and another five days after the moment when the mother discovered the latest "fresh" vesicles on her body.
A person who has suffered chickenpox gains strong immunity to this infection and in most cases gets infected. repeatedly such a childhood illness can not. A second time, chickenpox can get sick with immunodeficiency.
How can you protect a child
Children with chickenpox have been isolated from healthy children, and quarantine is announced in kindergarten. However, such a measure of prevention is considered ineffective, because the virus begins to spread even at a time when the symptoms of the disease are absent. In addition, it is often the opinion that chickenpox is better to get sick in childhood, so many parents even seek to communicate their child with the sick chickenpox during the period of its infectiousness.
If the baby cannot get sick with chickenpox (he has immunodeficiency, severe chronic pathologies or other problems), then vaccination is the best way out. Vaccination, which is done from 9 months of age, will develop immunity to the chickenpox virus and help to avoid shingles in old age.
If such a vaccine is administered to a child under the age of 13, then this will be sufficient for strong immunity. If, however, to vaccinate a teenager over the age of 13, two injections are required for full protection.
Prevention in adults
For adults, the prevention of chickenpox infection is much more important than for children under 10 years of age, because in adolescents and adults the course of such infection is more severe. The rash in adults is more abundant, it can suppurate and leave scars, and the body temperature rises to 40 ° C. In addition, the risk of complications and deaths from chickenpox in adults is increased.
Particularly important is the prevention of chickenpox for a pregnant woman who did not suffer this infection in childhood, because the varicella virus can cause serious abnormalities in the fetus or cause congenital chickenpox, which is difficult and requires treatment in the hospital.
If a child is sick in the family, and the mother or father did not get sick in childhood, the doctors recommend the following preventive measures:
- Limit contact with a sick baby.
- Wear a gauze bandage.
- Select the child separate dishes and individual hygiene items.
- Wash clothes of a sick baby separately from clothes of adults.
- Often to ventilate the room and carry out wet cleaning, as the virus is unstable in the external environment.
- Apply a quartz lamp.
- Take vitamin complexes to increase their immunity.
However, all these measures do not give a 100% guarantee that an adult will not become infected. sick chickenpox baby The only way to protect yourself from chickenpox in adulthood is vaccination. Women are recommended to be vaccinated against chickenpox at least 3 months before pregnancy planning so that at the time of conception they already have immunity and do not threaten the formation of fetal organs and systems.
Emergency prevention
In some cases, you need to urgently protect yourself from the varicella-zoster virus. And this can be done through the introduction of a vaccine. A vaccination made within 72 hours after contact with an infected person can prevent infection. If you enter the drug after 72 hours, it will help move the chickenpox in a milder form.
Another option for emergency prevention can be called admission Acyclovir within 2 weeks. This antiviral drug acts on the pathogen of chickenpox, interfering with its reproduction. To prevent infection such a tool is not capable, but the clinical course of the disease will be easier, the rash will form less and they will heal faster.
Read more about chickenpox vaccine See the transfer of Dr. Komarovsky.
