title: Clinical benefits of routine varicella vaccination for adults.
abstract: Varicella is a highly contagious disease caused by varicella zoster virus. In children, it is generally a mild to moderate illness while it is often more severe in adults, with serious complications as dehydration, pneumonia, bleeding problems, infection or inflammation of the brain, secondary bacterial infections, sepsis, toxic shock syndrome, bone infections, joint infections and deaths. Some groups of adults are at major risk of complications, in particular immunocompromised persons as subjects with impaired humoral immunity and who is receiving systemic steroids, persons who live or work in environments in which transmission of varicella is likely, health-care personnel and pregnant women. After the introduction of Universal Mass Vaccination (UMV), the first mathematical models suggested that vaccination will lead to a shift in the average age at infection from children to adults with an increasing numbers of complicated forms, nevertheless new models predicted that, although an upward shift in the age at infection may occur, the overall morbidity due to varicella is likely to decrease. Current literature seems to suggest that for public health authorities the key action to prevent an increase of varicella incidence among adults is to achieve high vaccination coverage among babies and adolescents in countries who adopted UMV.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Biomedical Science and Human Oncology; "Aldo Moro" University of Bari ; Bari , Italy.
authors.forename: Cinzia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Germinario
authors.forename: Maria Serena
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Gallone
authors.forename: Maria Giovanna
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Cappelli
authors.forename: Silvio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tafuri
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002644:Chickenpox / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D019433:Chickenpox Vaccine / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011247:Pregnancy; D014611:Vaccination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D019433:Chickenpox Vaccine
keywords: CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention; UMV, Universal Mass Vaccination; Universal Mass Vaccination; VZV, varicella zoster virus; immunization strategies; risk groups; susceptible adults; varicella