( to the skin causing the blistering ras...)Experimental shingles vaccine proves effective in nationwide study

Generally, shingles first manifests as pain, itching or tingling in an area of skin on one side of the body or face. Then a painful blistering rash develops in that same area of skin; the rash can take two to four weeks to heal.

Anyone who has had chickenpox--which includes most adults in the United States--could develop shingles, though not all will. The two major risk factors are increasing age and declining immunity. Half of all people who live to age 85 will get the disease. Experts estimate more than a million new cases of shingles occur in the United States each year.

The trial was conducted at 22 study sites nationwide, including 16 VA medical centers and six clinical research sites outside the VA system coordinated through NIAID. Between November 1998 and September 2001, the multicenter research team enrolled more than 38,500 men and women age 60 or older into the study. Half of the participants received a single injection of the zoster vaccine--a live, weakened form of varicella-zoster virus, the virus responsible for chickenpox; the other half received a placebo vaccine. Neither the researchers nor the participants knew who received vaccine and who received placebo until after the study was over. The zoster vaccine used in the study, manufactured by Merck, is a new, more potent version of the chickenpox vaccine used to prevent chickenpox in millions of American children every year since 1995. The zoster vaccine was developed specifically for study in older adults.

During an average of more than three years of follow-up, the vaccine reduced the incidence of shingles by 51 percent: 642 cases of shingles occurred among those in the placebo group compared with only 315 in the vaccinated group. Among all vaccine recipients, the total burden of pain and discomfort due to shingles was 61 percent lower than in placebo recipients. Moreover, the zoster vaccine reduced the incidence
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Source:NIH