Epidemiology and nursing research to a communicable disease.

Write a paper (2,000-2,500 words) in which you apply the concepts of epidemiology and nursing research to a communicable disease. Refer to “Communicable Disease Chain,” “Chain of Infection,” and the CDC website for assistance when completing this assignment.

Communicable Disease Selection

Chickenpox
Tuberculosis
Influenza
Mononucleosis
Hepatitis B
HIV
Ebola
Measles
Polio
Influenza
Epidemiology Paper Requirements

Describe the chosen communicable disease, including causes, symptoms, mode of transmission, complications, treatment, and the demographic of interest (mortality, morbidity, incidence, and prevalence). Is this a reportable disease? If so, provide details about reporting time, whom to report to, etc.
Describe the social determinants of health and explain how those factors contribute to the development of this disease.
Discuss the epidemiologic triangle as it relates to the communicable disease you have selected. Include the host factors, agent factors (presence or absence), and environmental factors. Are there any special considerations or notifications for the community, schools, or general population?
Explain the role of the community health nurse (case finding, reporting, data collection, data analysis, and follow-up) and why demographic data are necessary to the health of the community.
Identify at least one national agency or organization that addresses the communicable disease chosen and describe how the organizations contribute to resolving or reducing the impact of disease.
Discuss a global implication of the disease. How is this addressed in other countries or cultures? Is this disease endemic to a particular area? Provide an example.
A minimum of three peer-reviewed or professional references is required.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

ANSWER

Epidemiology and Nursing Research to a Communicable Disease

Introduction

Chickenpox, also recognized as varicella, has been a very infectious disease. Chickenpox has been a viral infection that spreads easily through the air even before the infected show any symptoms. This paper is a research on Chicken Pox as an infectious disease. The research will highlight the causes, symptoms, modes of transmission, complications, treatment demographic of interest, social determinants of health, epidemiologic triangle, the role of the community health nurse, national agency, and global implication of the disease. Therefore, this research aims at reporting on Chickenpox and demonstrating a clear understanding of the disease.

Epidemiology

William Heberden was the first physician that illustrated how Chickenpox was different from smallpox ((Breuer and Fifer, 2011). Chickenpox has remained a great problem in the United States even though it has been considered a self-limiting disease with irregular issues. In the united states, Chickenpox was reported in the early 1990s after four million people were affected by the virus (Breuer and Fifer, 2011). Before the establishment of the vaccine, chickenpox had developed into a life-threatening disease. However, over the past decades, there have been vaccines that have been used against chickenpox.

Chickenpox has been very prevalent among children even though there have been reported cases of adults. Chickenpox is self-limiting and mild but adverse commonly among pregnant women, adolescents, and adults (Breuer and Fifer, 2011). Individuals with low immunity systems are at a higher risk of contracting. Chickenpox has circulated globally over the past few years, with severe health concerns rising among healthcare providers. Regarding the WHO, the highest percentage of the cases have been reported due to lack of vaccines during young age.

Causes and Symptoms

Chickenpox is an infection that results from a virus known as Varicella zoster. The virus varicella-zoster is an exclusively human virus responsible for causing herpes zoster (Gershon and Gershon, 2013). The varicella virus gets into the body and then replicates between twenty to twenty-one days before the disease manifests itself in the body. After the infection, the individual with the virus begins to develop itchy rashes that become blisters.

The blisters usually form about two hundred to five hundred blisters all over the body and last for about a week, where they become red and itchy. However, the number of rashes tends to vary depending on whether the infected person has an immunization against chickenpox. The blisters develop into liquid-filled blisters that later dry up to form scabs. Some other symptoms that accompany chickenpox include headache, a general feeling of fatigue, loss of appetite, illness, fever, nausea, sore throat, aching muscles, and swollen lymph nodes Gershon and Gershon, 2013). An infected individual may have the signs and symptoms the days before getting any spots.

Modes of Transmission

The infectious disease model offers three elements; the host, the infectious agents, and the environment, which are the least requirements for spreading and transmitting infectious diseases such as chickenpox. The infectious agent is the virus or bacteria that has to be present for the infection to occur and spread. The host is the human who is invaded by the infection, while the environment entails all other factors that contribute to prohibit the spread of the virus. Since chickenpox is a highly contagious disease, the infection can be transmitted from one individual to another through direct contact. The disease can also be transmitted through the air since it air-bone. Therefore, in situations such as coughing and sneezing, it is easy for an infected person to transmit the disease.

Additionally, the disease can also be transmitted indirectly through contaminated items such as mucous membranes and vesicles from an infected person. Ideally, when a healthy person gets into contact with the vesicle fluid or the mucous membrane that has the varicella virus by any means, they are likely to develop the infection (Duncan, 2019). A person infected with chickenpox is highly contagious from the first day or two days before the first rashes begin to appear and continues to be at risk until all the rashes are disappearing or getting scabbed. Therefore, the contagiousness lasts until the blisters have dried up and begin to fall off.

Chickenpox can also be transmitted during pregnancy. Ideally, even though most pregnant women are immune, Chickenpox incidences in pregnancy are common, resulting in high morbidity and mortality than in non-pregnant women (Krishnan and Sharma, 2020). When a pregnant woman gets infected two to five days before delivery, there is a high risk that the newborn will be infected. The newborn tends to develop rashes between five to ten days after birth.

Complications

Ideally, individuals at a high risk of the complications include adolescents, infants, adults, pregnant women, and individuals with weak immune systems. Chickenpox complications are more severe in adults as compared to children (Shaukat et al., 2020). This is because most of the infected adults tend to develop lung complications such as pneumonia. However, lung problems are amplified by lifestyle issues such as smoking.

In children, mild complications include blister infections that make the skin red, itchy, and sore. However, serious chickenpox complications tend to occur, but they are rare among healthy individuals. Some of the serious complications that are associated with chickenpox comprise of bacterial contaminations in the skin and soft tissues in kids, infection of the brain, infection of the lungs, bloodstream infections, and bleeding infections (Shaukat et al., 2020). However, the chickenpox infection is mild and dies after two to three weeks. Chickenpox can lead to health complications in the mother and the newborn. Ideally, if the pregnant woman was infected within the first twenty weeks of the pregnancy, there is a likelihood that the unborn will develop fetal varicella syndrome. The syndrome has severe complications that are rare among the unborn. These include eye defects, brain damage, scarring, and limb defects. Limb abnormalities and low birth weight are among the common complications among newborn babies to infected women in their earlier pregnancy stages.

The infected person generates antibodies that fight the infection. The infection can be eliminated and controlled by antibodies, while some viruses tend to be dominant in the body system. When a person is infected with chickenpox, they tend to develop an immune which resists the varicella virus, which explains why a person can’t get infected with chickenpox more than once in their lifetime (Shaukat et al., 2020). In most cases, the chickenpox infection does not lead to those complex complications since most infected individuals can manage and recover from the disease without having to visit a doctor or take any medication. Individuals with weak immune systems have been more susceptible to getting infected. Ideally, a weak immune system means that the body will release few antibodies to fight the infections, thus the likelihood to encounter complications such as septicemia, breathing problems, meningitis, and pneumonia are complications linked to chickenpox infection.

Treatment

The chickenpox vaccine, which is known as the varicella vaccine, has been known for protecting people against the disease. Vaccination against the varicella virus can be used to control the outbreak and prevent spreading the disease (Wutzler et al., 2017). The vaccination enables the body to develop resistance against the virus and effectively lessens the complications in case of any. Children need to be immunized to lower the risk of spreading the disease. However, there is no cure for chickenpox, but the virus tends to clear itself.

There are ways that one can lower the severity of the associated symptoms and infections and prevent spreading the virus.  These include painkillers, isolation, proper care, and immunoglobulin treatment (Shrim, Koren, Yudin, and Farine, 2018). For instance, the immunoglobulin treatment entails an immunoglobulin with a high content of antibodies that fight the virus. Painkillers are recommended to relieve the infected individual from chickenpox fever. This can also be effective in relieving the pain that comes from the sores. Isolation has also been effective in preventing the spread of the virus. A child infected can be isolated to control the spread to others in school until the scabs dry up.

Demographic of interest

Chickenpox is more of a childhood disease, with the highest percentage of cases occurring among children that are less than ten years. The incidence of chickenpox varies among varying age groups (Breuer and Fifer, 2011). Varicella commonly influences children less than ten years, with the highest among children in 1-4 years. The occurrence of chickenpox lowers with age. However, the disease is mild in healthy children. Severe complications are rare among children but are more likely to exist in children with poor immune systems.

Social Determinants of health

The social determinants of health entail the situations in which individuals are born, live, work, and age that influence their health conditions. Therefore, the social determinants of health include environmental, social, behavioral, psychological, and social factors. The social determinants of health influence the spread and prevention of infectious diseases since they affect individuals’ preparedness.

Ideally, socio and economic conditions have individuals’ chickenpox management, prevention, and immunity greatly. Effective management of chickenpox requires multiple skills such as knowledge of the disease and the ability to work with the local communities and government organizations for vaccination and treatment adherence. Economic conditions have also led to the prevalence of the disease in some areas. For instance, poor household incomes are positively linked with chickenpox due to lack of immunization. Poverty, poor diet, under immunization, and poor immune control are some of the risk factors that have affected the control and spread of chicken among individuals.

Epidemiologic Triangle

To effectively manage and control the spread of an infectious disease such as chickenpox, it is important to understand the communicable disease chain, which consists of the host, environment, and infectious agent. The Varicella-zoster virus affects the respiration system of human beings. Once the virus gets into the body, it tends to replicate and manifest itself all over the body. The severity of the infection increases during the incubation period, where rashes occur into the body (Breuer and Fifer, 2011). The disease can then be passed on to another human being directly through close contact, sneezing, and coughing. The epidemiology triangle is essential in the development of disease analysis, treatment, and prevention systems.

Role of the Community Health Nurse

The community health nurse focuses on improving communities’ wellbeing and health through education about disease and illness prevention, safe health procedures and practices, wellness, and nutrition. One of the community health nurses’ main objectives is to recognize health issues in the community and offer healthcare to patients that fail to afford or access medical services (Darch, Baillie, and Gillison, 2017). They establish intervention plans that address the safety, health, and nutritional issues they discover.

At times, a contagious disease such as chickenpox can spread throughout the community. This can be in large towns, small communities, regional or urban areas. The nurse must ensure that the community is safe and that the community health issue is managed successfully. Therefore, the community nurse should be equipped with knowledge on chickenpox to educate and advise people on controlling and managing the disease. The community nurse should focus on community awareness and empowerment on the chicken outbreak possibilities, the causes, symptoms, and signs, vaccination programs as well as the possible remedies that will ensure that the infection does not spread and reduce the effect of the disease severity in the community (Boyd, Heaton, Wilkinson, and Paul, 2017). Therefore, the community health nurse should work towards preventing the common health issue before it grows out of control.

National Agency

The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases offers education and creates awareness to healthcare professionals about the causes, burden, disease analysis, and treatment of an infectious disease. This includes information regarding vaccine safety, vaccine-preventable diseases as well as vaccine science. Ideally, accurate, reliable, and current information is essential in solving the prevalence of the disease since there is a greater understanding of the infectious disease (Bloom, Black, and Rappuoli, 2017). Research findings from the national agency have created effective strategies that have been used to rule out different vaccines for the Varicella virus.

Global Implication of the Disease

Over the recent years, WHO has estimated over 4.2 million varicella complications that have led to hospitalization every year. Despite the fact that the disease is benign to children, it is more severe in adults who experience high risks of hospitalization. Chickenpox has had significant effects on the economic, social, and general wellbeing of society. Varela, Pinto, Scotta (2019) stated the greatest burden of varicella has been economical, with a high number of cases contributing to the economic effect. Prevention and control strategies have led to a greater economic burden. Socially, chickenpox has accounted for a high number of hospitalization every year, leading to deaths and emotional periods for the affected individuals. The socio-economic impact of varicella has had serious ramifications on a global and personal level.

Conclusion

Varicella-Zoster virus is a highly contagious infection and common among children. The research shows that chickenpox affects all individuals from children to adults, with mild infections in children but severe complications in adults. The disease has remained a burden due to socio and economic implications linked to the disease. However, despite the fact that the disease has no cure, the virus clears up itself. The varicella vaccine has helped the body develop greater resistance against the body and reduced the risk of spreading the infections. Understanding the epidemiology of chickenpox and the epidemiology triangle of Varicella zoster is essential in improving the analysis, treatment, and control of the infection.

References

Bloom, D. E., Black, S., & Rappuoli, R. (2017). Emerging infectious diseases: a proactive approach. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(16), 4055-4059.

Boyd, G., Heaton, P. A., Wilkinson, R., & Paul, S. P. (2017). Nursing management of childhood chickenpox infection. Emergency nurse: the journal of the RCN Accident and Emergency Nursing Association, 25(8), 32-41.

Breuer, J., & Fifer, H. (2011). Chickenpox. BMJ clinical evidence, 2011, 0912.

Darch, J., Baillie, L., & Gillison, F. (2017). Nurses as role models in health promotion: a concept analysis. British Journal of Nursing, 26(17), 982-988.

Duncan, D. L. (2019). Chickenpox: Presentation, transmission, complications, and prevention. British Journal of School Nursing, 14(10), 482-485.

Gershon, A. A., & Gershon, M. D. (2013). Pathogenesis and current approaches to control of varicella-zoster virus infections. Clinical microbiology reviews, 26(4), 728–743. https://doi.org/10.1128/CMR.00052-13

Krishnan, V., & Sharma, A. (2020). Chickenpox in Pregnancy. Journal of Fetal Medicine, 1-7.

Shaukat, A., Ahmed, U., Aamir, H., Ismail, U., Jahangir, M., & Ahmad, A. (2020). Various Complications of Chickenpox in Admitted Patients; 2017 Perspective. Annals of Punjab Medical College (APMC), 14(4), 292-294.

Shrim, A., Koren, G., Yudin, M. H., & Farine, D. (2018). No. 274-Management of Varicella Infection (Chickenpox) in Pregnancy. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, 40(8), e652-e657.

Varela, F. H., Pinto, L. A., & Scotta, M. C. (2019). Global impact of varicella vaccination programs. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutic, 15(3), 645-657. DOI: 10.1080/21645515.2018.1546525

Wutzler, P., Bonanni, P., Burgess, M., Gershon, A., Sáfadi, M. A., & Casabona, G. (2017). Varicella vaccination-the global experience. Expert review of vaccines, 16(8), 833-843.