When is chickenpox infectious

During an outbreak, persons who do not have adequate evidence of immunity should receive their first or second dose as appropriate. The patient groups recommended to receive VariZIG include those with a weakened immune system, pregnant women, newborns whose mothers have symptoms of varicella around the time of delivery five days before to two days after delivery and certain premature infants exposed to chickenpox as newborns.

Navigation menu. Who gets chickenpox? How is chickenpox spread? What are the symptoms of chickenpox? How soon do symptoms appear? What are the complications associated with chickenpox? When and for how long is a person able to spread chickenpox? Is there a treatment for chickenpox? Does past infection with chickenpox make a person immune? Is there a vaccine for chickenpox? What can be done to prevent the spread of chickenpox? Revised: January Your browser does not support iFrames.

Ask your mom or dad if you've had your shots. You'll be glad that you did if chickenpox starts making its way around your school! Reviewed by: Kate M. Cronan, MD. Larger text size Large text size Regular text size. What Is Chickenpox? People who get the virus have: a fever a rash of spots that look like blisters They also might get a runny nose, cough, and stomachache. What Are the Signs of Chickenpox? How Does Chickenpox Spread?

Itchy-Itchy, Scratchy-Scratchy If you are that unlucky person, how do you keep your chickenpox from driving you crazy? These tips can help you feel less itchy: Keep cool because heat and sweat will make you itch more. You might want to put a lukewarm washcloth on the really bad areas. Trim your fingernails, so if you do scratch, you won't tear your skin.

Soak in a lukewarm bath. Adding some oatmeal to your bath water can help relieve the itching. Minus Related Pages. Related Pages. Chickenpox Signs and Symptoms. Related Links. Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website. Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website. You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.

CDC is not responsible for Section compliance accessibility on other federal or private website. Your child may have a fever for the first few days of the illness. The spots can be incredibly itchy. There is no specific treatment for chickenpox, but there are pharmacy remedies that can alleviate symptoms.

These include paracetamol to relieve fever, and calamine lotion and cooling gels to ease itching. Read more about chickenpox treatments. Chickenpox may be a childhood illness, but adults can get it too. Chickenpox tends to be more severe in adults than children, and adults have a higher risk of developing complications. Adults with chickenpox should stay off work until all the spots have crusted over. They should seek medical advice if they develop any abnormal symptoms, such as infected blisters.

Adults with chickenpox may benefit from taking antiviral medicine if treatment is started early in the course of the illness. Read more about antivirals in the treatment of chickenpox.

Some children and adults are at special risk of serious problems if they catch chickenpox. They include:. These people should seek medical advice as soon as they are exposed to the chickenpox virus or they develop chickenpox symptoms. They may need a blood test to check if they are protected from immune to chickenpox.

Read more about immunity testing and the diagnosis of chickenpox in people at special risk. Chickenpox occurs in approximately 3 in every 1, pregnancies. It can cause serious complications for both the pregnant woman and her baby. See complications of chickenpox for further information on what to do if you are exposed to chickenpox during pregnancy.

Once you have had chickenpox, you usually develop antibodies to the infection and become immune to catching it again. However, the virus that causes chickenpox, the varicella-zoster virus, remains inactive dormant in your body's nerve tissues and can return later in life as an illness called shingles. Read more about shingles. There is a chickenpox vaccine, but it is not part of the routine childhood vaccination schedule.

The vaccine is only offered to children and adults who are particularly vulnerable to chickenpox complications. So it may be possible to develop the infection after vaccination. Similarly, there is a chance that someone who has received the vaccine could develop chickenpox after coming in close contact with a person who has shingles. The most commonly recognised chickenpox symptom is a spotty, blistering red rash that can cover the entire body.

However, the spots can be anywhere on the body, even inside the ears and mouth, on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet and inside the nappy area. Although the rash starts as small, itchy red spots, these develop a blister on top and become intensely itchy after about hours. After a day or two, the fluid in the blisters gets cloudy and they begin to dry out and crust over.

New spots can keep appearing in waves for 3 to 5 days after the rash begins. Therefore, different clusters of spots may be at different stages of blistering or drying out. Read more about how to ease the itchiness and other symptoms of chickenpox in our section on chickenpox treatments. Find out what you can do to stop chickenpox spreading. Before the rash appears, you or your child may have some mild flu -like symptoms, including:. These flu-like symptoms, especially the fever, tend to be more common and worse in adults than in children.

Most healthy children and adults recover from chickenpox with no lasting ill-effects simply by resting, just as with a cold or the flu. Read more about chickenpox complications. Chickenpox is caused by the varicella-zoster virus. You catch it by coming into contact with someone who is infected. Chickenpox is a very contagious infection. The chickenpox virus is spread most easily from someone who has the rash.

The blisters are very itchy and break open easily, which can contaminate surfaces or objects. The virus may then be transferred by touching the surface or object, then touching your face.

The virus is also contained in the millions of tiny droplets that come out of the nose and mouth when an infected person coughs or sneezes. This can also contaminate surfaces or objects. It normally takes 14 days for the symptoms of chickenpox to show after you have come into contact with the virus. However, this can vary from person to person — from as little as 7 days, up to 21 days. This is called the "incubation period".

Someone with chickenpox is most infectious from 1 to 2 days before the rash appears, until all the blisters have crusted over. This usually takes 5 to 6 days from the start of the rash. Read more about the diagnosis of chickenpox and how to stop chickenpox spreading. If you have not had chickenpox before, you can also catch chickenpox from someone with shingles an infection caused by the same virus.

However, it's not possible to catch shingles from someone who has chickenpox. You or your child should not usually need any medical tests to diagnose chickenpox. You can be pretty sure that it is chickenpox if there are the key symptoms of a mild fever followed by an itchy rash, with blisters and scabs. Chickenpox spots are usually distinctive enough to distinguish from other rashes, although they can be confused with other conditions that affect the skin, such as insect bites or scabies another contagious skin condition that causes intense itching.

If you're uncertain about what is causing the symptoms, your GP can carry out a simple blood test to identify the virus. Find your local GP surgery. Contact your GP urgently if you have been in contact with someone who has chickenpox, or you have chickenpox symptoms and:. Chickenpox in these instances can cause serious complications, if left untreated.