Many individuals have got affected by the pandemic and among them elders life with the pandemic have got it more difficult by being more inside with little contact with the outside world.

New reports now state that those elder individuals who were down with Covid 19 are at a high risk of getting shingles, which is a virus that is caused by chickenpox virus.

This is caused due to the weakening of the immune system by the covid virus which could trigger shingles which gets suppressed for many years after a case of chickenpox which is dye to the varicella-zoster virus.

The experts stated about those who required hospitalization for covid 19 had 21 percent risk of contracting with shingles.

Researchers led by Amit Bhavsar, the director of clinical research and development at GlaxoSmithKline stated that the high level of risk of shingles is seen among people who’ve had covid 19 which have seemed to lasted in the first six months after getting in contact with the disease.

Dr. Linda Yancey, an infectious disease expert at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, told Healthline that, “All kinds of illnesses can trigger shingles."

She observed that varicella-zoster virus belongs to the same family as herpes, Epstein-Barr and Cytomeglo virus, which leads to mononucleosis.

She said, “Once we pick up any of these viruses they stay with us for a lifetime and can reactivate when we are under stress."

"As we age, our immune systems age as well and it becomes easier for the virus to reactivate and cause a shingles outbreak. Any illness, including COVID, can cause a shingles outbreak. So, this is a very expected result.”

Researchers could detect that the risk of shingles was the double among women especially those above the age of 65.

Sources - https://www.healthline.com/health-news/adults-over-50-who-get-covid-19-have-increased-risk-of-shingles