Human Disease
Primary VZV infection results in chickenpox (varicella), which may rarely result in complications including encephalitis or pneumonia. Even when clinical symptoms of chickenpox have resolved, VZV remains dormant in the nervous system of the infected person (virus latency), in the trigeminal and dorsal root ganglia. In about 10–20% of cases, VZV reactivates later in life producing a disease known as shingles or herpes zoster. VZV is more likely to reactivate in patients with severely compromised immune systems, such as AIDS patients. Serious complications of shingles include postherpetic neuralgia, zoster multiplex, myelitis, herpes ophthalmicus, or zoster sine herpete. Ramsay Hunt syndrome; VZV rarely effects the geniculate ganglion giving lesions that follow specific branches of the facial nerve. Symptoms may include painful blisters on the tongue and ear along with one sided facial weakness and hearing loss.
Read more about this topic: Varicella Zoster Virus
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or disease:
“I am secretly afraid of animals.... I think it is because of the usness in their eyes, with the underlying not-usness which belies it, and is so tragic a reminder of the lost age when we human beings branched off and left them: left them to eternal inarticulateness and slavery. Why? their eyes seem to ask us.”
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment.”
—Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)