A day care center asked the nurse to come because they had several chi

A day care center asked the nurse to come because they had several children out as a result of chickenpox. Which of the following statements should the nurse make to the staff?

a. “Chickenpox has low infectivity so few children will get sick.”
b. “Chickenpox has low pathogenicity so the children won’t be sick enough to stay home if the parents really need to go to work.”
c. “Chickenpox has low virulence so the children will be back at the day care center in a week or so.”
d. “Adults never catch chickenpox, so the staff are safe and may continue working.”

ESSAYBID ANSWER

ANS: C
Other considerations for understanding the action of agents include their power to invade and infect large numbers of people (infectivity), their ability to produce disease in those infected with the agent (pathogenicity), and their ability to produce serious disease in their hosts (virulence). When the above concepts are applied, the chickenpox virus has high infectivity, high pathogenicity, and very low virulence.