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Chickenpox Illness and Chimpanzees
At a young age of elementary school, I suffered from chickenpox, a disease caused by the Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV). This was a disturbing moment for me, especially because I did not accept the symptoms that accompanied the disease. One of the most conspicuous symptoms is the appearance of skin rash that was characterized by small and itchy blisters around the body (Landau 20). During the time, the rashes all over my body were severe and I could not stop scratching the itchy blisters. This was the most traumatizing because I declined to go to school looking that way, until I healed. In addition, I had fever, persistent headaches and feeling general body tiredness.
Chickenpox illness lasts for around ten to twenty days, but the blisters and rashes can take even up to a month to clear (Landau 21). However, the active period of the illness is between five to ten days, when the disease is disturbing. This is because the symptoms appear five to ten days after the initial infection. When a person is exposed to the VZV virus, he or she does not show the symptoms immediately, and the disease does not show up until five to ten days elapse. After this, a person suffers fever and the rashes appear which reveals the illness as the cause of the symptoms (Landau 19). This is the reason why this disease is mostly misdiagnosed in the initial stages, like it happened in my case.
Chickenpox is treatable through medical interventions to the fever and the symptoms. The treatment is mostly done to ease the symptoms of the illness. For instance, a person is given analgesic tablets like Paracetamol to relieve pain and antipyretic medication to reduce the fever. In addition, the rashes are treated with calamine lotion, like I was treated. Moreover, a patient may be treated with antibiotics to reduce the chances of bacterial infections in the blisters. There is a vaccine for the VZV virus, which has greatly reduced the cases of the illness, and reduced complications when a vaccinated person is infected (Wyngaarden 46).
Luckily, human beings are not incapacitated during the illness or after the infection of chickenpox disease. This is because the disease only affects the skin, and not the vital body organs. In addition, the disease comes along with fever that is not extreme enough to cause serious injuries or illness. However, it is advisable not to go to public places to avoid infecting other people with the virus. This advice is valid because the VZV virus is highly contagious and infects other people who have not had the disease yet (Guilfoile 9). Despite the disease, a person can still perform normal duties, especially when the fever is not high.
Even if chickenpox is not treated, the illness does not normally cause fatalities. However, there are few cases of complications from the disease that leads to fatalities. In most cases, the disease clears itself because the body creates internal antibodies that fight off the disease. While it can clear itself, it is advisable to treat the disease. There is no way to avoid chickenpox, apart from vaccination. Luckily, a person is only infected once, and develops the antibodies that prevent future occurrence.
Relation with Chimpanzees
Chickenpox would affect chimpanzees in the same way it affects human beings because both species are primates. However, taking into consideration of the living conditions of the chimpanzees, chickenpox will affect them differently. The disease may severely affect chimpanzees if they get infected with the VZV virus. This is because the low nutritional life of the chimpanzees that sometimes may go without food for some time. Their simple bush shelters also expose them to environments that may increase the severity of the illness.
A study done on two chimpanzees revealed that, naturally, the primates showed mild infection and illness of the VZV virus (Cohen et al 289). However, it should be noted that the infection was in a controlled environment, with a good shelter and proper diet to the chimpanzees used for the research. The symptoms of chickenpox would be more severe in chimpanzees in the wild than in human beings because of the lack of medicine to suppress the disease. This assertion is in consideration of the low immunity levels of chimpanzees because of poor diets. The fever may be high for the chimpanzees only because of the environment, and not their physiology.
When I suffered from chickenpox, I would still have survived if I was a chimpanzee. This is because the effect of the VZV virus is slightly mild for the chimpanzees than in human beings. As a chimpanzee, I would have adapted to the situation and fought the disease off. However, it could be worse if I was to be exposed to the environment and living conditions of the chimps. Despite the same, would have survived through the use of wild herbs that chimpanzees use to treat themselves.
Works Cited
Cohen Jirgens, Moskal T, Shapiro M, and Purcell RH. “Varicella in Chimpanzees”. Journal of Medical Virology 50 (4): 289–92
Guilfoile, Patrick. Chicken Pox. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009
Landau, Elaine. Chickenpox. Tarrytown, New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2009, Print
Wyngaarden, James., Smith, Loyd., and Bennett, Claude. Cecil textbook of medicine, Vol. 1 & 2, 19th ed. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1992, print