Herpes Zoster is the virus that causes chicken pox and later Shingles.
If a person has chicken pox as a child they have the Herpes Varicella
Zoster virus in their body. The chicken pox is actually the primary
outbreak. Shingles is essentially a recurrent outbreak, and usually
there are not many recurrent shingles outbreaks. If you have shingles
you can give chicken pox to someone that hasnt had it. I think Zoster
and Simplex are both Alpha viruses in the herpes family, but not the
same herpes virus.

Epstein Barr is a Gamma herpes virus, and a herpes virus but not the
same as simplex or zoster. About 90% of the US pop has Zoster, 80% has
Epstein Barr, and 65% has simplex 1. I think about 20% has simplex 2.
Herpes is out there!

Al

The term is the medical one that covers shingles. The virus in question is
Varicella Zoster Virus, which causes chickenpox as well as shingles. Its a
herpesvirus and the skin lesions were recognised as being herpetic and
zosteriform  so that where the clinical term came from. The virus name
comes from varicella which relates to chickenpox and zoster being thrown
together.

Tim
--
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