The virus that causes shingles, varicella zoster, is the same virus which causes chickenpox. Transmission The skin vesicles of shingles is not throught to be very contagious.
Children are the reservoirs of the virus, which is transmitted by the respiratory droplets.
It may be wise, however, for people with active shingles to avoid vulnerable groups of people, such as the immunosuppressed. Symptoms of infection outside the eye Skin eruptions which can be crusty which follow the territory of a single nerve. In the head, ophthalmologists are most interested in the trigeminal nerve, the first part of which carries sensation from the front of the eye. If this nerve branch is affected, the patient will have crusty weeping skin eruptions on the forehead, eyebrow, and nose. There may be considerable pain.