Ah, chickenpox, that pesky old childhood illness. And that’s all it is, right? Just a mild, routine infection that we all used to catch until the vaccine came around? Not quite. In this episode, we learn that, when it comes to the varicella-zoster virus, not everything is as it seems. We explore the complex nature of this virus, how it can make you kinda sick and then how it can make you really, really sick. After that, we dive into the evolutionary origins of this virus and the different infections it causes (spoiler alert: shingles as a viral survival strategy?!). And finally we trace its human history from discovery to vaccine to where we stand with chickenpox and shingles today.
| History | Biology |
| Kenneth, F. Kiple. “The Cambridge world history of human disease.” CUP, Cambridge (1993): 871. | Arvin, A.M., 1996. Varicella-zoster virus. Clinical microbiology reviews, 9(3), pp.361-381. |
| Zimmer, Carl. A planet of viruses. University of Chicago Press, 2015. | Hambleton, S. and Gershon, A.A., 2005. Preventing varicella-zoster disease. Clinical Microbiology Reviews, 18(1), pp.70-80. |
| Aronson, J. “Chickenpox.” BMJ (Clinical research ed.) vol. 321,7262 (2000): 682. doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7262.682 | Depledge, D.P., Sadaoka, T. and Ouwendijk, W.J., 2018. Molecular aspects of varicella-zoster virus latency. Viruses, 10(7), p.349. |
| Coleman, Stephen. “The association between varicella (chickenpox) and group A streptococcus infections in historical perspective.” SAGE open medicine 4 (2016): 2050312116658909. | Gnann Jr, J.W., 2002. Varicella-zoster virus: atypical presentations and unusual complications. The Journal of infectious diseases, 186(Supplement_1), pp.S91-S98. |
| Grose, Charles. “Pangaea and the out-of-Africa model of varicella-zoster virus evolution and phylogeography.” Journal of virology 86.18 (2012): 9558-9565. | Bonanni, P., Breuer, J., Gershon, A., Gershon, M., Hryniewicz, W., Papaevangelou, V., Rentier, B., Rümke, H., Sadzot-Delvaux, C., Senterre, J. and Weil-Olivier, C., 2009. Varicella vaccination in Europe–taking the practical approach. BMC medicine, 7(1), pp.1-12. |
| Muir, Winsome Barrett, Richard Nichols, and Judith Breuer. “Phylogenetic analysis of varicella-zoster virus: evidence of intercontinental spread of genotypes and recombination.” Journal of Virology 76.4 (2002): 1971-1979. | Doll, M.K. and DeCoster, B., 2020. Vaccine-Associated Shingles: What Do We Owe Varicella Vaccine Recipients in Adulthood?. The American Journal of Bioethics, 20(9), pp.78-80. |
| Nogueira, Raul G., and Bryan Traynor. “The neurology of varicella-zoster virus: a historical perspective.” Archives of neurology 61.12 (2004): 1974-1977. | Tanuseputro, P., Zagorski, B., Chan, K.J. and Kwong, J.C., 2011. Population-based incidence of herpes zoster after introduction of a publicly funded varicella vaccination program. Vaccine, 29(47), pp.8580-8584. |
| Oaklander, Anne Louise. “The pathology of shingles: Head and Campbell’s 1900 monograph.” Archives of neurology 56.10 (1999): 1292-1294. | Harpaz, R., 2019. Do varicella vaccination programs change the epidemiology of herpes zoster? A comprehensive review, with focus on the United States. Expert review of vaccines, 18(8), pp.793-811. |
| Pontremoli, Chiara, et al. “Possible European Origin of Circulating Varicella Zoster Virus Strains.” The Journal of infectious diseases 221.8 (2020): 1286-1294. | Gershon, A.A., 2019. Varicella vaccine: what have you done for me lately?. Pediatrics, 144(1). |
| Schmidt-Chanasit, Jonas, and Andreas Sauerbrei. “Evolution and world-wide distribution of varicella–zoster virus clades.” Infection, Genetics and Evolution 11.1 (2011): 1-10. | Baxter, R., Ray, P., Tran, T.N., Black, S., Shinefield, H.R., Coplan, P.M., Lewis, E., Fireman, B. and Saddier, P., 2013. Long-term effectiveness of varicella vaccine: a 14-year, prospective cohort study. Pediatrics, 131(5), pp.e1389-e1396. |
| Shulman, Stanford T. “The history of pediatric infectious diseases.” Pediatric research 55.1 (2004): 163-176. | James, S.F., Chahine, E.B., Sucher, A.J. and Hanna, C., 2018. Shingrix: the new adjuvanted recombinant herpes zoster vaccine. Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 52(7), pp.673-680. |
| Takahashi, Michiaki, and Stanley A. Plotkin. “Development of the Oka vaccine.” Varicella-zoster virus. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY (2000): 442-459. | |
| Takahashi, M et al. “Development of a live attenuated varicella vaccine.” Biken journal vol. 18,1 (1975): 25-33. | |
| Takahashi, Michiaki, et al. “Development of varicella vaccine.” The Journal of infectious diseases 197.Supplement_2 (2008): S41-S44. |
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