Infectious Diseases Chickenpox and Shingles

New Shingles Vaccine Approved

A new vaccine to protect against shingles has been approved for use by the FDA, with the hopes of preventing this painful disease in as many as 50 percent of adults.

This vaccine approval is unique because vaccines are most often approved for use in children, while this drug is meant to be given to people 60 years of age or older who have not yet had shingles.

“This vaccine gives health care providers an important tool that can help prevent an illness that affects many older Americans and often results in significant chronic pain,” said Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a press release.

Shingles will affect approximately 20 percent of Americans, most over the age of 60. The disease is caused by the same virus, varicella-zoster, which causes chickenpox. In fact, after a person has chickenpox as a child, this virus remains dormant in some nerve tissues. As people age, the virus can reappear as shingles, causing blisters on one side of the body and chronic pain.

In a study of 38,000 adults over the ago of 60, the vaccine, Zostavax, was shown to reduce the incidence of shingles by 50 percent. For those who received the vaccine and still acquired shingles, the pain normally associated with the disease was slightly reduced.

Zostavax works by boosting the body’s defense against the virus and is given as a single injection in the upper arm. The most common side effects associated with the vaccine were redness, swelling and pain where the injection was given. Itching and headache was also reported by some of the study participants.