Mass vaccination to control chickenpox: the influence of zoster.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Wellcome Centre for the Epidemiology of Infectious Disease, Department of Zoology, Oxford University, United Kingdom.

Published: July 1996

AI Article Synopsis

  • The study uses a mathematical model to analyze how shingles (zoster) transmission affects the spread of chickenpox (varicella) before and after mass vaccination programs.
  • Shingles reactivation of the virus helps stabilize the spread of the disease, leading to more predictable yearly patterns of infection.
  • The findings suggest that cases of shingles can actually lessen the increase in chickenpox cases among older individuals, who are at higher risk for severe disease.

Article Abstract

The impact of transmission events from patients with shingles (zoster) on the epidemiology of varicella is examined before and after the introduction of mass immunization by using a stochastic mathematical model of transmission dynamics. Reactivation of the virus is shown to damp stochastic fluctuations and move the dynamics toward simple annual oscillations. The force of infection due to zoster cases is estimated by comparison of simulated and observed incidence time series. The presence of infectious zoster cases reduces the tendency for mass immunization to increase varicella incidence at older ages when disease severity is typically greater.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC38965PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.93.14.7231DOI Listing

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