That boosting effect would make sure that the dormant virus remained so. It used to be that people who contracted chickenpox as children and then would later develop some immune-compromising disease or condition would be at highest risk for shingles.
As we grow older, the dormant virus may become active. This leads to the skin condition known as shingles. Shingles is a painful skin rash, usually on one side of the body, that scabs over in a few days and clears up in a couple of weeks. It is painful because the virus causes damage to the nerves where it was dormant. In some cases, complications similar to those caused by chickenpox can happen.
To prevent shingles, there is a Zoster vaccine recommended for people over the age of 60, though more and more evidence is coming to light that it may be necessary to lower that age recommendation because less and less adults are being boosted, leading to lower ages where the virus is reactivated and a wider gap since the last time their immune system confronted the infection. Find out more about who should have the chickenpox vaccine.
There's a worry that introducing chickenpox vaccination for all children could increase the risk of chickenpox and shingles in adults. While chickenpox during childhood is unpleasant, the vast majority of children recover quickly and easily. If a childhood chickenpox vaccination programme was introduced, people would not catch chickenpox as children because the infection would no longer circulate in areas where the majority of children had been vaccinated. This would leave unvaccinated children susceptible to contracting chickenpox as adults, when they're more likely to develop a more severe infection or a secondary complication, or in pregnancy, when there's a risk of the infection harming the baby.
When people get chickenpox, the virus remains in the body. This can then reactivate at a later date and cause shingles. Being exposed to chickenpox as an adult for example, through contact with infected children boosts your immunity to shingles.
If you vaccinate children against chickenpox, you lose this natural boosting, so immunity in adults will drop and more shingles cases will occur. Chickenpox vaccinations are provided free on the NHS where there's a clinical need, such as for healthy people who are not immune to chickenpox and are in close contact with someone who has a weakened immune system.
Measles, mumps and rubella vaccines Meningococcal vaccines Other Pneumococcal vaccines Polio 1. Pregnancy 7. Rotavirus Vaccines Shingles vaccines To prevent spreading VZV to others: Cover the rash.
Avoid touching or scratching the rash. Wash your hands often. Avoid contact with the following people until your rash crusts: pregnant women who have never had chickenpox or the chickenpox vaccine; premature or low birth weight infants; and people with weakened immune systems, such as people receiving immunosuppressive medications or undergoing chemotherapy, organ transplant recipients, and people with human immunodeficiency virus HIV infection. Some people have a greater risk of getting shingles.
This includes people who have medical conditions that keep their immune systems from working properly, such as certain cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, and human immunodeficiency virus HIV receive drugs that keep their immune systems from working properly, such as steroids and drugs that are given after organ transplantation.
Also see Treating Shingles Top of Page. Related Links.
0コメント