For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839593
malcolmfrost wrote:So does a virus naturally weaken as the host is killed off by the strong versions until the sweet spot of the virus and host being in harmony?


Viruses commonly get stronger/more virulent as they pass through a close community; In a large family of several generations living together a virus brought home by one of the kids (chicken pox springs to mind) as it passes through the family gets increasingly more virulent (a phenomenon known as passage and pronounced the French way) till by the time granny gets it its curtains-EDIT for clarity- from a serious dose of viral/varicella pneumonia or a serious dose of shingles from reactivation of past chickenpox ..................

This is why Coronavirus ripped through the ar se end of Leicester and Bradford, to name but two.
Last edited by PeteSpencer on Sat Apr 10, 2021 8:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839623
You are welcome to disagree but that doesn't mean you are right.

The shingles people get is the same virus (as in the very same particles which infected them in the first place when they had chickenpox (usually) as a kid, it is a reactivation of the virus they had and which has been dormant in their nerve roots. The virus does not get reactivated by a new infection by another person who reinfects them.

So although a person with shingles can potentially infect someone who has never had chickenpox yet and cause these people to get chickenpox, they cannot give someone else shingles.

A person with chickenpox can not give a person shingles.

For shingles to occur someone needs to get infected, get chickenpox and then, usually after years, get shingles.

Chickenpox pneumonia is a serious complication of chickenpox, commonly in adults who did not have chickenpox as a kid.

Can someone have chickenpox twice - yes but that is rare.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839640
I think you’re missing the point I’m trying to make and that is the pathological effect of a virus as it passes from person to person through a close group of people increases ie virulence increases with passage .

So to continue perhaps unwisely with my example of chicken pox , the instigator or the spreading infection, the kid from school, may just have the sniffles and a few spots , by the time it had gone through the whole family and reaches granny or a parent they’re very likely to croak from a vicious pneumonia . :wink:
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839659
Clearly what may be an innocent pathogen to people young and fit may very well lead to a terminal encounter with someone who is vulnerable. But that does not require the pathogen to become more virulent in the relative few cycles of reproduction in a domestic setting, it would be unusual for the mutations to be that quick, don't forget that many mutations of the virus will be terminal for the virus itself as it has no DNA and therefore the intrinsic repair capability of its own genetic material which is afforded to DNA holders.

But the fact that different pathogens have different effects on different groups is well known, EColi infections are usually mild in the healthy young and terminal in old people, Listeria no issue for most of the population unless they are pregnant etc.
#1839733
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:The shingles people get is the same virus (as in the very same particles which infected them in the first place when they had chickenpox (usually) as a kid, it is a reactivation of the virus they had and which has been dormant in their nerve roots. The virus does not get reactivated by a new infection by another person who reinfects them.



I know this is possibly going slightly off topic, but I find it fascinating. If shingles does not require "kick starting" by another infection from already present dormant chicken pox about which most of us have forgotten, what causes it to revive from the dormant state? Is it pure chance or something else? I ask because I declined the offer of a shingles vaccination last autumn (along with offers of vaccination against several other things in the recent past). Perhaps I should reconsider this year?

PW
#1839745
Propwash wrote:..I declined the offer of a shingles vaccination last autumn (along with offers of vaccination against several other things in the recent past). ..


IANAD, but have enough clinical experience (and relations!) to accept with alacrity both the shingles and the usual 'flu vaccine when each was proactively offered by our GP surgery last year. :thumright:
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By nallen
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839753
Propwash wrote:Is it pure chance or something else?


A challenged immune system (either due to age or another infection) can trigger shingles, but it seems the exact mechanism is not known. (Or so the research I did when I got shingles in February told me! I got off lightly …)
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#1839758
Propwash wrote:
I ask because I declined the offer of a shingles vaccination last autumn (along with offers of vaccination against several other things in the recent past). Perhaps I should reconsider this year?



Propwash

I had shingles affecting my face and scalp : the pain was so severe I couldn’t brush my hair for 3 weeks and I was very close (2mm) to getting a corneal ulcer :cry:

I am too young to qualify for a shingles vaccine from the NHS (over 70s). I happily paid £145 for a private vaccine.

Be under no illusion - shingles can be a very serious/painful/debilitating illness .
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#1839775
gasman wrote:
Propwash

I had shingles affecting my face and scalp : the pain was so severe I couldn’t brush my hair for 3 weeks and I was very close (2mm) to getting a corneal ulcer :cry:

I am too young to qualify for a shingles vaccine from the NHS (over 70s). I happily paid £145 for a private vaccine.

Be under no illusion - shingles can be a very serious/painful/debilitating illness .

It wasn't an aversion to the jab that stopped me accepting, and certainly not any illusions about shingles; it was a reluctance to visit the surgery at that particular time unless essential. It was the first time I had been invited for the shingles vaccine and will (all things being equal) accept an offer this autumn if I get one now that I have had both Covid vaccines doses. Interesting though how many individual jabs I was offered last year in a very short period of time. 70 seems to be a magic number for the NHS :( I do wonder if accepting them all is really a healthy thing for the body, but what do I know?

PW
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