Herpes zoster, also known as shingles, is very rare
among children who have been vaccinated against chicken pox, according
to a Kaiser Permanente study in the December issue of the Pediatric
Infectious Diseases Journal.
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The study, the largest of its kind, used electronic health
records to identify more than 170,000 children
vaccinated with the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine from 2002 to 2008
in Kaiser Permanente's Southern California region, then followed
children for an average of two and a half years to identify the
occurrence of herpes zoster.
Researchers found only 122 cases of herpes zoster among the 172,163
vaccinated children, for an estimated incidence of 1 case per 3,700
vaccinated children per year. This is a lower rate compared to what one
would expect in the unvaccinated children based on previous
experiences.
"The message to parents and pediatricians is: vaccinating your child
against the chicken pox is also a good way to reduce their
chances of getting herpes zoster," said the study's lead author, HungFu
Tseng, Ph.D, MPH, a research scientist and epidemiologist at the Kaiser
Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena, Calif.
"More research is needed to identify the virus
strains that cause herpes zoster."
This study did not look at side effects of the varicella vaccine.
Herpes zoster is an acute skin viral infection caused by reactivation
of latent varicella-zoster virus, which remains in certain nerve cells
of the body after an infection with either wild-type or the varicella
vaccine virus. The wild-type virus is found in the natural infection, in
contrast to the virus strain found in vaccine.
Since the vaccine's introduction in 1995, there have been few studies
on the incidence of childhood herpes
zoster among children vaccinated with the varicella vaccine.
Following licensure in 1995, 1-dose varicella vaccine was recommended
for children 12 months to 12 years of age. In 2006, a routine second
dose of varicella
vaccine for previously vaccinated persons
aged 4 years and older was recommended.