Molluscum contagiusum in al-Najaf city patients and its relationship to handshaking and kissing : an epidemiological study

الملخص EN

Background : Molluscum Contagiusum is a common viral infection of the skin, caused by a poxvirus, commonly affects young children.

The disease is common, although the incidence in most areas is not reliably known.

An infection transmitted through contact with infected persons or contaminated objects.

Aim of the study : To study the relationship between the transmission mechanisms of molluscum contagiusum with handshaking and kissing.

Methodology : This study was conducted in the Department of Dermatology and Venereology – al-Sadir Medical City in Al-Najaf from March 2016 to January 2017.

Ninety-five patients were included in this study.

Full history and physical examination were done for all patients.

The age of patients, sex, number of lesions, siteof distribution, duration of lesions and family history were assessed.

Results: Ninety-five patients with molluscum contagiusum 72(54.3 %) males and 23(45.6 %) females with a maleto female ratio 1.19-1.

Their ages ranged from 1.5-62 years (mean and standard deviation 19.4+16.7).

The disease duration varies between 1 – 24 weeks with a mean ± SD of 5.17± 4.407 weeks.

The most common affected body sites are the face and most of the lesions appear on the right side of the face.

Conclusion: It is clear from the results in this study that the right side of the face is the most infected side.

This indicates that there is direct contact with lesion mostly related to handshaking and kissing.

Recommendations: we recommend to study involves larger number of the patients as and to check the relationship to other actions like swimming.