What You Should Know About Shingles Vaccines|Fierce pharma
shingles otherwise known as herpes zoster is a reactivation of the virus that causes chickenpox starting in the 1990s.
Most children had been routinely immunized for chickenpox with a vaccine prior to this the majority of people acquire the actual chickenpox virus and for those that experience chickenpox there is a risk of the virus coming back in the form of shingles and that's what we're talking about today the major updates and shingles are with regards to vaccines in 2006 a shingles vaccine called zoster vaccine goals and it's complications and is what's known as a live attenuated vaccine meeting it's not completely dead and therefore there is a theoretical risk of getting the infection from the vaccine itself so since it's been out since 2006 for the past 10 years or so there was this concern for patients who had a rheumatic disease on high doses of immune suppressing medications that they could get the infection.
However recently at the 2019 American College of Rheumatology annual meeting researchers reported zoster backs is safe for people who are currently receiving a class of medications known as tumor necrosis factor inhibitors or TNF inhibitors and this study was a big deal these medications are biologic therapies used to treat a whole host of different rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis psoriatic arthritis and many others there are five different TNF inhibitors approved by the FDA these are at a limit mad and flix amad meet enter Sept go luma mad and Sirte Lizaveta.
The name of the study was called the verve trial and this was a randomized control trial of more than 600 individuals in the United States receiving TNF inhibitor therapies now the goal of the study was to evaluate how safe and effective zoster FEX was in these patients who might have a not normal immune system due to their TNF inhibitor treatment the majority of these patients either had rheumatoid arthritis or in psoriatic arthritis and what the researchers did is they gave zoster vaccine patience and watch them over a period of six weeks and at the end of that six weeks period they said okay well who developed shingles during that time and at the end of the day zero patience developed confirmed shingles thus this provided evidence that zoster backs is safe at least in this particular patient population now that being said in 2017 a new different vaccine called Shing ryx was released that is more than 90% effective in preventing shingles and his complication post herpetic neuralgia and at this point is to prefer vaccine recommended by the Centers for Disease Control or CDC adults over the age of 50 are approved for the vaccine and it is given in a two shot series administered two to six months.
Apart now Shane Brooks is different from zoster vaccine that is a dead virus and thus there is no risk of getting the infection from the vaccine however in order to make the vaccine effective it contains what is called a strong adjuvant think of that as a immune stimulator and the purpose of this adjuvant is so that your immune system will better recognize the vaccine and thus provide long lasting protection but because of this cynics can produce a strong response from your immune system so it may produce short term side effects that are a little more intense than you're used to from other vaccines these side effects can be uncomfortable but they are expected and typically go away on their own in about two to three days of note even if you've had the original shingles vaccine exhaustive acts you can still get shingles and if you had shingles before you should still get vaccinated jinguk's is covered by most health care providers and most healthcare insurers but you should still call your insurance company just to make sure you don't have a lot of out of pocket expense lastly although approved for those over the age of 50 there are some individuals that are younger than 50 who are at high risk due to their specific disease or the treatments they receive so they should speak with their rheumatologist on the utility of receiving either Zostavax or Sheng Greeks.
