Chicken pox is an acute contagious disease, usually transmitted through the air. When a person with chicken pox coughs or sneezes, they expel tiny droplets that carry the chicken pox virus (varicella-zoster virus, VZV). If a person who has never had chicken pox inhales these particles, the virus will enter the lungs and is carried through the blood to the skin where it causes the typical rash of chicken pox.
The infected droplets will cause an initial infection in the respiratory epithelium. The incubation period (the time between exposure to the virus and appearance of symptoms) is between 10 - 20 days.
Before the typical rash appears, patients usually develop a fever, headache, swollen glands and other flu like symptoms.
Skin vesicles contain the virus but are not the primary sources of the virus. Scabs are also not infectious. Patients are contagious from 2 days before the onset of the rash until all lesions have crusted.
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