OBJECTIVE: To assess the epidemiology and burden of varicella in children attended in Primary Care Centers of Spain.
METHODS: Seventy Paediatricians from 7 regions participated in the study. It was approved by an Ethics Committee, and informed consent was obtained from parents. Clinical and sociodemographic data were collected from April to June 2000.
RESULTS: 683 chickenpox cases were recruited; 95% occurred in children less than 10 years (mean 4.5 yrs). In 17% of the cases the origin of the infection was unknown, in 82% was the school or family. Complications occurred in 102 children (15%), of these 56% were skin bacterial superinfection, 20% acute otitis media, 12% conjunctivitis, 2% pneumonia and 10% other complications. Each case attended the paediatric clinic a mean of 1.42 times, and 13% were also attended in Emergency clinics. Most cases received at least one antihistamine; antibiotics prescriptions were: 98 systemic and 54 topic and Acyclovir: 76 oral and 5 topic.
Five cases were admitted to hospital, and no deaths occurred. Parents work loss was 0.97 days per case, children were mainly looked after by grandparents. Children failed a mean of 6.6 days at school, and 2.2 days at other activities. Of the 683 cases, 197 transmitted the disease to other people, being 21% of the secondary cases older than 12 years; 15% transmited the disease to their parents.
CONCLUSIONS: Varicella complications found in our study are more frequent than those reported using different surveillance systems. Due to the family structure in Spain, parents work loss is lower than that reported in other industrialized countries.