Comprehensive guide to the treatment of herpes zoster, including antiviral therapy, pain management, and complications. The chickenpox virus (varicella-zoster) causes shingles (herpes zoster), a painful, blistering contagious rash. Get the facts on shingles treatment, symptoms, complications, the vaccine, and the contagious period of this viral infection. Shingles is a rash with shooting pain. It usually shows up on just one side of your body. Learn more about symptoms, causes, contagiousness, vaccine, diagnosis, and treatment. Identify common symptoms, causes and spread, treatment, and risks of shingles (herpes zoster). Shingles is a viral infection that causes a painful rash. Shingles can occur anywhere on your body. It typically looks like a single stripe of blisters that wraps around the left side or the right side of your torso. Shingles is caused by the varicella-zoster virus — the same virus that causes chickenpox. After you've had chickenpox, the virus stays in your body for the rest of your life. WHO fact sheet on shingles (herpes zoster), including key facts, risk factors, symptoms, transmission, diagnosis, treatment and WHO response. Identify common symptoms, causes and spread, treatment, and risks of shingles. Shingles, sometimes called herpes zoster, is an infection caused by the varicella-zoster virus. Learn more here. Shingles is a painful rash caused by the varicella-zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox. If you’ve had chickenpox in the past, you could get shingles. The causative agent for shingles is the varicella zoster virus (VZV)—a double-stranded DNA virus related to the herpes simplex virus and member of Herpesviridae. The complete sequence of the viral genome was published in 1986. [38] Most individuals are infected with this virus as children, which causes an episode of chickenpox.