Alert on Chickenpox in Thiruvananthapuram

February 21, 2018

CET (College of Engineering, Trivandrum) closed after 19 cases of chickenpox reported.

The Thirivananthapuran district health administration has issued an alert against chicken pox, with many cases being reported regularly from several parts of the district. Although no major outbreaks of the disease have been reported, CET was closed for two weeks on Monday, after 19 cases of chicken pox was reported amongst students, mostly in the hostel. Out of the 19 students, 13 had been diagnosed clinically, while the rest had reported with fever and rashes, the beginning stage of the infection.

Chicken pox is a highly contagious air-borne disease and it was natural for the infection to spread in hostels, which are often congested and where students are in close contact with each other. Infected patients are contagious up to 5 days before and 5 days after the first rash appears.

 

Symptoms of Chickenpox

The incubation period (the time from infection to symptoms) is usually about 2 to 3 weeks (i.e., 14 to 21 days) after contact with the virus, and so there is likely to more cases, the District Medical Officer, P. Preetha, said.

The Sree Chitra Tirunal College of Engineering at Pappanamcode was also closed just 2 weeks ago for the same reason where about 25-30 cases had been reported. Usually people contract chickenpox by age 15, but all ages can contract it, but today most of the youngsters have not been exposed to the virus as children.

Chicken pox infection can therfore shows up more severely in adults and because of this preventive vaccination is advised.

As per doctors, healthy persons who have not been vaccinated, if comes into contact with an infected person, can lessen the severity of the infection if they get vaccinated within the first three to five days after the exposure.

Home Remedy for Chickenpox

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