Shingles Vaccine
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of Merck & Co. vaccine Zostavax in 2006, with the purpose to prevent this painful disease in as many as 50 percent of adults, about half of people 60 years of age and older.
After people suffer chicken pox in childhood, the virus hidden in the body and in the dormant state, until the body’s immune function decline (usually in old age),it will come out as herpes zoster (shingles).
In the United States, each year there are about one million new cases of shingles. Despite the decline in immune function in any of the people is vulnerable to the disease, but the disease is still easier to occur in the elderly.
Zostavax vaccine can not prevent the initial infection of varicella-zoster virus and can not cure the outbreak of herpes zoster (shingles). But it can enhance the patient’s immune system to help prevent the dormant virus in the body to become re-active.
In order to test the vaccine, Researchers vaccinated 38,546 persons, who aged 60 or over and have had chickenpox before. After three-year follow-up survey on those people, the results showed that the vaccine can reduce the shingles outbreak by about 50%, and so that the pain and discomfort by a decrease of almost 2 / 3.
Like any medicine, the vaccine could possibly have some side effects, such as severe allergic reactions.Generally speaking, the vaccine’s side effects are minor, such as headache, injection location redness or swelling
Mild Problems:
Redness, soreness, swelling, or itching at the site of the injection (about 1 person in 3).
Headache (about 1 person in 70).