Prevention of Varicella Infection (Chickenpox)
We all understand that vaccination is a very good idea when it comes to the prevention of various diseases especially in children.
The Varicella Zoster virus infection is the primary infection in children and it is usually a mild infection. Sometimes this infection is inevitable in childhood and then develops in adults and has more complications. The likely known complications include encephalitis, pneumonitis and secondary bacterial infection.
New vaccine- Varilrix
Varilrix is a vaccine of the varicella infection and was launched in Queensland by a team of research doctors. It has now become a difficult task to determine its attack rate since the rate of attack incidences are not reported to the Health Department. All that is done is to attain blood and test it for the presence of antibodies which may be IGG.
After carrying out all these research tests, it is noted that the prevalence rate in both male and female is the same. What we can all give a conclusion is that the prevalence rate increases with the age. The virus is more found in certain regions than others. There is a difference in their prevalence between tropical and temperate regions.
From the prevalence of the infection in distribution of the respective age groups, immunisation should actually be targeted to the paediatrics. At the age of 35 people are still susceptible to this infection. At this age still there are people who have not had this infection and this implies that they should be vaccinated.
Importance of Varilrix
• If this vaccine is used in healthy children, there is diminution of morbidity and mortality and to the general population
• The immune suppressed would be less susceptible
• Vaccine reduces epidemics and the associated problems
• Reduced cost to the society
This primary varicella infection is for the most part a mild illness with few vesicles, as stated above, in adults it is a full blown syndrome with a lot of scars all over the body. To the individuals that are immune-compromised it can be severe with complications. VCV infection can be quite mild. Some percentage of the affected individuals requires hospitalisation and the 2% of the hospitalised are reported dead. Healthy individuals also get infected and a vaccine of the same would be vital to them and not all the immunosuppressed get infected.
Complications of VCV Infection
• Super infection of the skin
• Encephalitis
• Pneumonitis
There are a lot of research tests underway in having more vaccines to this VCV infection.
coronavirus vaccine
