Varicella-zoster virus (VZV). Varicella-zoster virus is a herpes virus that can cause chickenpox in children and shingles (Herpes zoster) in adults. The virus is transmitted by airborne viral particles shed from the skin of an infected person. The new host breathes in the virus, which enters the mucous membrane in a person's respiratory tract and begins to spread without its envelope from cell to cell. The virus invades T-cells of the blood and those T-cells carry the virus to the skin. There, the virus can recreate its envelope because the top layer of the skin lacks the endosomal pathway that removes glycoproteins from the envelope.