Varicella and Herpes Zoster – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

varicella and herpes zoster in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. Reading the spots
2. When it will show
3. Fever relief
4. The old tablets
5. The teenage brother
6. Wobbly a week later
7. Born at the wrong time
8. Exposed on treatment
9. Purple patches
10. Shingles at six
11. The tip of the nose
12. Back to class
13. Grandmother’s rash
14. Will it keep hurting
15. Which test
16. Where it hides
17. New spots elsewhere
18. The brothers and sisters

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: A rash concentrated on the palms and soles more than the trunk, Around two weeks, within a range of ten to twenty-one days, Use ibuprofen, since it also reduces the inflammation in the spots, Dehydration from vomiting causing a low blood sugar and confusion, Oral aciclovir started now, since he is an adolescent seen early, A posterior fossa tumour presenting coincidentally at this time, Breast milk carries large amounts of the virus to the baby, A dose of the live varicella vaccine today to boost his immunity, Autoantibodies after the infection clearing a natural anticoagulant, A measles, mumps and rubella vaccine given in the past month, A second, separate dermatome that is not linked to the first one at all, He can go to school only after five days of aciclovir treatment, Chickenpox, since the blister fluid carries the same virus, Lasting pain is expected in most children for about a year.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Chickenpox: every stage of spot seen side by side.
• Varicella incubation: about two weeks, up to 21 days.
• Chickenpox fever: paracetamol, and never ibuprofen.
• Aspirin in chickenpox: fatty liver and brain swelling.
• Teenager with chickenpox seen early: oral aciclovir.
• Ataxia a week after chickenpox usually fully resolves.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all Infectious Disease case decks · pediatric reference values.