How Do Shingles Spread to Others?
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Shingles Is A Virus
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Shingles is a virus that infects and can spread between humans. As a virus, shingles is not a living organism like a bacteria but instead is a collection of nucleic acids (a genome) capable of attaching itself to DNA. As the virus attaches itself to DNA inside the body, it replicates itself and spreads to other portions of the host's DNA and, in great enough quantities, makes the host sick. The virus that causes shingles, varicella zoster virus or simply VNV, is the same virus that causes chickenpox in humans.
VNV Stays In The Body
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Most individuals have chickenpox at some point in their lives. After recovery from chickenpox, a weakened form of VNV stays in the body for the rest of the person's life. In most people, this suppressed virus prevents the host from ever catching chickenpox or related diseases again, though a very few individuals actually experience multiple bouts of chickenpox. As people age, their immune system becomes less effective, sometimes allowing the VNV virus to resurrect itself in the form of shingles. For this reason, people over 50 years old, individuals with immune system deficiencies and those who take immunity-suppressing drugs are at the greatest risk for contracting shingles.
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Shingles Spreads Through Contact
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People who have never had chickenpox or shingles, or those who have a suppressed form of the VNV virus, may contract shingles after coming into physical contact with someone who has an active case of the illness. When an individual has shingles in the "blister phase," an open blister or sore carries microscopic copies of the virus onto the person's skin. If that person also has openings on the skin, or in the mouth, the virus can infiltrate the new host and cause an outbreak. Almost all individuals who come into contact with an active case of shingles contract chickenpox, then retain the virus in a dormant state.
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