| The spherical varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infects most children worldwide by the age of 10. Transmitted in airborne droplets exhaled from an infected person, the virus causes a low fever and a rash of fluid-filled blisters that begin as red spots covering most of the body and the inside of the mouth. The disease is dangerous to newborns, to people first infected in adulthood, and to those in whom the virus remains dormant in nerve cells, erupting as the more painful and sometimes chronic zoster (shingles) later in life. VZV is a member of the Herpes virus family, which also includes the causative agents of infectious mononucleosis, roseola, and oral and genital herpes. |
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