Chicken Pox Research Papers

The varicella zoster virus (VZV) is a DNA virus belonging to the herpes family of viruses .  VZV is the cause of the primary illness that is commonly called chickenpox, a highly contagious disease transmitted via direct contact with a patient’s skin lesions or oral secretions and, somewhat less commonly, through airborne routes .  The disease manifests in the familiar skin rash, usually concentrated around the trunk, scalp and face, and is often preceded by such symptoms as fever, upper respiratory tract infection, and malaise .

In many parts of the world, chicken pox is something of a childhood rite of passage: some four million American children once contracted the disease each year .  The lifetime risk of infection with VZV is approximately 95 percent.  The illness was once so widespread that almost all adults in the United States were immune as a result being infected at a young age .  In the overwhelming majority—90 percent—of childhood cases the disease runs its course in about one week and the most frequent complications are infections resulting from continual scratching of one or more of hundreds of small red spots that appear on the surface of the skin .  Chicken pox often also leaves permanent scars about the face and other parts of the body .  In the United States, the most serious cases resulted in some 9,000 hospitalizations each year and as many as 100 deaths from complications associated with the disease .

Nonetheless, although chicken pox is a relatively mild childhood illness, VZV can produce severe complications among adults .  Acute complications with chicken pox such as encephalitis, superimposed skin infections, and pneumonia are considerably more common among adults that among children .  In Canada, for instance, although adult patients make up only about 5% of all yearly infections, in the decade between 1987 and 1996, they accounted for some 70 percent of all reported VZV-related deaths .  In addition, the virus may lie dormant for decades in the sensory nerve ganglia, becoming active again only later in life when it can produce herpes zoster—the illness commonly known as shingles .  The most dangerous consequences of chicken pox are often observed in pregnant women with the disease: during the first two trimesters of pregnancy it can result in severe birth defects, while in the final trimester it can produce neonatal chicken pox, which is associated with a mortality rate during the first month of life as high as 30 percent among infected infants .

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Custom Chicken Pox Research Papers from Paper Masters

A research paper is an in-depth examination of Chicken Pox. More than just an overview of what was learned on Chicken Pox, like a term paper is, a research paper contains analysis of Chicken Pox along the lines of organizational theory and relevant published material. Research papers are highly analytical and can often be more than 8 to 10 pages. The key to a good research project is the examination of recently published journal articles and peer-reviewed material on the Chicken Pox chosen. Like the name implies, research papers are exactly that, a paper that examines the information that can be found on Chicken Pox.