Who would have thought it? A cuddly toy in the shape of a virus! These cuddly characters are incredibly endearing and educational too. Each one comes with a detailed scientific description and photograph of what he looks like under the microscope, along with medical tips on how to avoid picking up these bugs in daily life. Children seem to be totally fascinated by them, and it really helps when explaining all about why they are feeling poorly. The perfect gift to accompany a Get Well card. Also a brilliant present for medical students, doctors and nurses etc. You will soon understand why they are becoming amazingly popular! Start collecting now. Facts: Getting chickenpox was once a childhood rite of passage - nearly everyone contracted the desease at some point in their youth. Indeed, some parents were known to have "pox parties" to deliberately infect their children at a young age when the symptoms tend to be mild. But the days of the playing chicken with the scratch-inducing virus are rapidly coming to a close: the agressive introduction of an effective vaccine is now making chickenpox infections as rare as hen's teeth. What is chickenpox? Technically speaking, it is an infection with the varicella-zoster virus (which is a member of the herpesviridae family of viruses, and a cousin of the herpes and mononucleosis). More generally, it is highly contagious, though generally non-serious, illness usually spread through direct contact (or coughing and sneezing) that produces hundreds of itchy red spots all over the shin. Superficially, these spots resemble the marks left bt small pox, which probably accounts for the name "chickenpox" - a weak version of the far more serious disease - though other etymological theories spring from the resemblance of the marks to chicken pecks or chick peas and phonetic similarity of the Old English word giccan, meaning " to itch." In any case, wherever the word came from, with a vaccine around, the sky is falling on the Varicella-Zoster virus, like good ol' chickenpox, will come home to roost one day in the form of shingles.