Shingles Prevention

Chickenpox vaccine

Shingles prevention through immunization with the varicella vaccine (or chickenpox vaccine) is now recommended in the United States for all children between 18 months and adolescence. It can protect children from getting chickenpox.

People who have been vaccinated against chickenpox are less likely to get shingles because the weak, "attenuated" strain of virus used in the chickenpox vaccine is less likely to survive in the body over decades. But a definitive answer to the question of whether shingles can occur later in life in a person vaccinated against chickenpox will only be provided when enough data have been gathered over the next several decades.

shingles prevention & immunization

Some scientists believe that immunizing children against chickenpox increases the risk of shingles in adults who were not themselves immunized during childhood. This is because when adults care for children sick with chickenpox, it reboosts their own immunity that keeps the virus in their nerve cells from reactivating as shingles. With fewer children coming down with chickenpox, there are fewer opportunities for this "reboosting" of adult immunity, and so there may be more shingles cases for the next 40-50 years.

shingles prevention vaccine

In May 2006, the Food and Drug Administration approved a VZV vaccine (Zostavax) for use in people 60 and older who have had chickenpox. When the vaccine becomes more widely available, many older adults will for the first time have a means of preventing shingles.

Researchers found that giving older adults the vaccine reduced the expected number of cases of shingles by half. And in people who still got the disease despite immunization, the severity and complications of shingles were dramatically reduced. The Shingles Prevention Study - a collaboration between the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Merck & Co., Inc. - involved more than 38,000 veterans aged 60 and older.

Safe shingles prevention

The purpose was to find out how safe the vaccine is, and if it can prevent shingles. Half the study participants were vaccinated with a more potent version of the chickenpox vaccine, developed specifically for use in adults, and half received a placebo vaccine. Neither volunteers nor researchers knew if a particular subject had gotten active or placebo vaccine until after the end of the study (a double-blind study).

During more than 3 years of followup, the vaccine reduced shingles cases by 51 percent; 642 cases of shingles developed in the placebo group compared with only 315 in the vaccinated group. Pain and discomfort were reduced by 61 percent in people who received the active vaccine but still got shingles. The vaccine also reduced the number of cases of postherpetic neuralgia by two-thirds compared with the placebo.

The shingles vaccine is only a preventive therapy and not a treatment for those who already have shingles or postherpetic neuralgia.