Fifth Disease/Parvovirus B19

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

Those of you with young children probably already know what fifth

disease is but for those of you who don't know, it's primarily a

childhood disease along the lines of chicken pox, measles and mumps.

Apparently the powers that be, ran out of names after naming chicken

pox, measles, mumps and rubella so when it came to fifth disease, they

named it just that, " fifth " because it was often the fifth childhood

illness to be contracted.

In any case, it is caused by a virus named " Parvovirus B19 " (which

incidentally has nothing to do with the parvovirus that many of us

have our dogs vaccinated against). It seems this is the time of year

that fifth disease becomes rampant (at least at my kid's school it is)

so I thought I'd mention it. For normal healthy people, it's not a

big deal, you get a rash and a fever and it passes but it can cause

problems for people with leukemia because it can potentially halt red

cell production for a while so for those of us who are already anemic,

this could be a problem.

I think the majority of adults are already immune to it but if you're

not, you may want to avoid going into elementary schools and day cares

or if you know a child who has it, you may want to avoid that child

for a while.

Take care,

Tracey