Atypical clinical manifestation of herpes zoster infection of a child: A case report

Abstract

Herpes zoster is formed by reactivation of the varicella zoster virus which is silent in the posterior root ganglia. Herpes zoster is an acute, vesicular rash which is located in dermatomes. Herpes zoster is frequently seen in elderly and immunocompromised people and is rare in healthy children. The prevalence of herpes zoster in healthy children is increasing nowadays. This increase can be explained as exposure to varicella infection in the early childhood or in the intrauterine period where immunity is not fully developed. Herpes zoster is most common on thoracic region by 75%, where as sacral involvement is very rare with 2% as in our case; and this involvement is expressed as atypical presentation. Herpes zoster is rarely seen in healthy children and it heals better and without any complications. Intensive stress, weight loss, bacterial, viral and parasitic infections facilitates the development of herpes zoster in healthy children. A girl was admitted to the family medicine outpatient clinic in October 2018 with vesicular rashes on the popliteal region of the right leg. A history of varicella infection, varicella vaccine, chronic disease, emotional stress, operation, trauma, immunosuppressive drug use, radiation history were questioned. In this case, an 8-year-old patient with an atypical presentation of herpes zoster infection who was known to had chickenpox and who had no immunosupressive disease was presented.