To Sandy Schieman:
 
>Should I worry about the little guy?  I certainly don't want him to come
>down with some weird mutation of the chicken pox virus which, I'm told, is
>what shingles is.
 
Shingles is an inflammatory condition caused by persistence of the varicella
type of herpesvirus in the nerves of the skin.  While amny ehrpesviruses can
cause species lines, this one is not transmissible at this point.  While
many of us have had chickenpox as children, and so probably still have the
latent virus in the nerves of our body, no one knows why such a small
percentage of us develop shingles from it as adults.
 
At any rate, you are not shedding the virus at this point, and Tater will
not be able to pick it up.
 
Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP
Dept. of Vet Path, AFIP
[log in to unmask]  OR
Chief Pathologist, AccuPath
[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 1421]