Anyone who has had chickenpox shares one distinct memory: the relentless, all-consuming itch.

Ciara DiVita was only 3 years old when she caught the virus, but she remembers it well—along with the oven mitts she was made to wear to stop herself scratching. She also recalls being taken to hang out with her cousin while covered in blisters, in the hopes of deliberately infecting them.

DiVita, now 30, was actually the second in the chain, having been taken by her parents to catch chickenpox from an infectious friend. “I imagine the chain continued and my cousin gave it to someone else at a chickenpox play date,” she says.

A lot has changed over the past three decades, most notably the development of a chickenpox vaccine, meaning the virus is no longer the childhood rite of passage it once was.

Thanks to the vaccine’s success, children today are much less likely to be exposed to the infection at school or on the playground.

Chickenpox parties are also largely considered a relic of the past—a strategy many Gen X and millennial children were subjected to before vaccines became routine. But much like the virus itself—latent, opportunistic—they haven’t disappeared entirely.

Before a vaccine existed, chickenpox, which is caused by the varicella-zoster virus, felt unavoidable. In temperate countries like the UK and the US, around 90 percent of children caught the virus before adolescence (in tropical countries the average age of infection is higher).

It’s nothing to do with chickens. The splotchy, scratchy, highly contagious disease is possibly named after the French word for chickpea, pois chiche, according to one theory, because the round bumps caused by the virus resemble their size and shape. While most infant cases are mild, adolescents and adults are more likely to develop severe complications.

This is where the idea of “getting it over and done with” emerged from, according to Maureen Tierney, associate dean of clinical research and public health at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.

“You were trying to have your child get the disease when they were at the greatest chance of not having complications,” Tierney says, explaining that, generally speaking, the older the patient, the more severe the infection can be.

While varicella-zoster is usually a mild, self-limiting disease in children, it can be much more severe—and sometimes life-threatening—in adults.

“I had an otherwise healthy adult patient who died of chickenpox pneumonia when I was first practicing,” Tierney says. “You never forget those scenarios.”

The virus spreads rapidly through respiratory droplets and contact with fluid from its characteristic blisters, meaning if one child contracts it, siblings and classmates are likely to be next, if unvaccinated.

Before the existence of social media, the idea that children should deliberately infect each other spread just as rapidly around communities—in conversations in the school yard, church groups, and pediatric waiting rooms—leading to the popularity of so-called chickenpox parties.

Parents swapped advice about oatmeal baths and calamine lotion and arranged to bring children together when one was thought to be infectious—despite the practice never being an official medical recommendation.

“They thought, well, if it's going to happen to my kid anyway, it might as well happen in a controlled environment,” says Monica Abdelnour, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. “The families were ready to encounter this infection, deal with it, and then move on.”

While the majority of children who develop chickenpox feel well again within a week or two, around three in every 1,000 infected experience a severe complication such as pneumonia, serious bacterial skin infections, encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), or meningitis.

“Some kids get really, really sick,” says Jill Morgan, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and an expert in pediatric health. “The problem is, if you had these parties, you didn't know which kids would get over it and be OK, and which kids would end up in the hospital.”

Chickenpox parties faded into obscurity once routine vaccination began to take hold in many parts of the world; a 2018 analysis of global vaccination trends and infection rates shows cases decreased dramatically in countries such as the US, Germany, and Australia, where universal childhood vaccination programs have already been rolled out.

In the US, the vaccine has been associated with a roughly 97 percent drop in reported cases since its introduction, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Global data show similarly steep declines in hospitalization rates following the adoption of universal programs elsewhere: Uruguay saw a 94 percent reduction among young children, Canada a 93 percent drop, and Spain more than 80 percent.

While immunologists hope that, just like smallpox, the disease might one day be eradicated thanks to widespread vaccination, chickenpox has far from disappeared—and for immunocompromised people who can’t be vaccinated, the disease remains a severe risk. The virus can also lie dormant for decades before resurfacing as shingles, which can be painful and also lead to potentially very serious complications, including chronic, long-lasting nerve pain and higher risk of heart attack and stroke.

Recent efforts to increase vaccination against shingles in older generations have been even more successful than anticipated: emerging research suggests people who receive the shingles vaccine—which targets the same varicella-zoster virus—may experience slower aging and a lower risk of dementia.

“By vaccinating patients, we protect the people who can't get the vaccine,” says Morgan.

“Hey mamas,” TikTok creator Hannah Grabau Kugel joked about a post she’d seen on social media. “Any other grass-fed, free-range mamas interested in hosting a chickenpox party with me?”

Her tone was ironic, but the subtext is not—it’s reflective of something real that people are noticing pop up in some parenting groups on Facebook. Last year, the owner of a children’s indoor activity center in the UK was tipped off about one of these parties happening at her venue, the BBC reported. She put a stop to it, and labeled the idea “shocking and selfish.”

The anti-vax movement, and the idea that “naturally” acquired immunity is preferable, persists. In the years since the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccine skepticism has surged, raising concerns among public health organizations and reaching the highest levels of public debate.

Doctors worry about what happens when those ideas spread not just through neighborhood networks, but through digital platforms optimized for engagement.

The World Health Organization has also warned of vaccine hesitancy leading to higher rates of disease worldwide. Measles, which can cause breathing problems, blindness, and even death, was once on the way to eradication, but the US has seen a steady increase in outbreaks. In 2025, there were 2,288 confirmed cases, according to the CDC—the highest number since 1991.

“That's a problem,” says Morgan. “I'm waiting to hear that the same thing is going to happen with chickenpox.”

Chickenpox parties were built on the simple assumption that infection was inevitable, so parents might as well attempt to control their child’s experience of it. Public health education and new vaccine rollouts helped overturn that premise. But the internet, with its algorithms built for nostalgia and misinformation, is quietly rebuilding it.

Diseases are difficult to eliminate completely, and much like stubborn cultural ideas such as the chickenpox party, they lie in wait for an opportunity to come back.

“The tricky part is that when you have such good vaccines, you're really good at preventing infections,” she adds. “We've got a catch-22. We've prevented those things, but we can't forget them.”