Anyone who has had chickenpox shares one distinct memory: a relentless, all-consuming itch.
Ciara DiVita was only 3 years old when she caught the virus, but she remembers it well—and the oven mitts she was made to wear to stop scratching herself. He also remembers being taken out with his blistered cousin, hoping to infect them on purpose.
DiVita, now 30, was actually the second in the chain, taken by her parents to catch chicken from an infected friend. “I think the chain goes on and my cousin gave it to someone else on a chicken day,” he said.
A lot has changed in the last thirty years, especially the development of the chicken pox vaccine, which means that this virus is no longer the childhood norm it used to be.
Thanks to the effectiveness of the vaccine, children today are much less likely to be exposed to infection at school or on the playground.
Chickenpox parties are also considered a relic of the past—a strategy that many Gen Xers and millennials were subject to before vaccines became commonplace. But like the virus itself—a stealthy, opportunistic one—it doesn’t disappear entirely.
Before the goal there, chickenpox, caused by the varicella-zoster virus, felt inevitable. In temperate countries such as the UK and US, around 90% of children contract the virus before puberty (in tropical countries the average age of infection is higher).
It has nothing to do with chickens. The contagious, itchy, contagious disease may have been named after the French word chickpea, the chicheaccording to some theory, because the round bumps caused by the virus are similar in size and shape. Although most cases in children are mild, teenagers and adults are more likely to have severe problems.
That’s where the idea of ”getting it over with and getting it over with” emerged, according to Maureen Tierney, director of health and public health research at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
“You’re trying to get your child to get this disease when they have a high chance of not having any complications,” Tierney said, explaining that, generally speaking, the older the patient, the more difficult the infection can be.
Although varicella-zoster is usually a mild, self-limiting disease in children, it can be very serious—and sometimes life-threatening—in adults.
“I had a healthy elderly patient who died of pneumonia when I first started practicing,” Tierney said. “You will never forget those situations.”
The virus spreads rapidly through respiratory droplets and contact with the fluid from its blisters, meaning that if one child gets it, their siblings and classmates may be the next, if they are not vaccinated.
Before social media existed, the idea that children should intentionally infect each other quickly spread through communities—in schoolyard discussions, church groups, and children’s waiting rooms—leading to the proliferation of so-called cartoon parties.
Parents exchange advice about oatmeal baths and calamine lotion and plan to swaddle children when they think they have the virus—despite the fact that this practice is hardly legal medical advice.
“They thought if it was going to happen to my child anyway, it could happen in a controlled environment,” said Monica Abdelnour, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. “Families were ready to deal with this disease, deal with it, and move on.”
Although most children who get chickenpox feel well again within a week or two, about three out of every 1,000 who get the disease develop serious complications such as pneumonia, severe bacterial skin infections, encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), or meningitis.
