When I got chickenpox, like most kids, I had to put up with the
painful, itchy red bumps that erupted all over my body, and with my
Grandma’s endless insistence on vinegar and calamine baths.
When I got chickenpox, like most kids, I had to put up with the painful, itchy red bumps that erupted all over my body, and with my Grandma’s endless insistence on vinegar and calamine baths.
But the disease as a right of passage is a whole lot less common than it used to be. Health care costs associated with chickenpox have dropped more than 75 percent in the last decade, according to a study published in the Aug. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and physicians like study co-author Dr. Abigail Shefer, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control’s National Immunization Program, are now recommending that anyone who has not had the disease be vaccinated.
I can hear the chorus of folks over the age of 20 going, “What?” so I’ll elaborate.
Most people view chickenpox as an irritating but otherwise mild disease, and never realize that it was responsible for as many as 13,000 hospitalizations and 150 deaths per year prior to the vaccination’s 1995 introduction. Bad cases of chickenpox can lead to severe skn infections, pneumonia, and, if the virus internalizes, brain damage resulting in permanent injury or death, according to the CDC.
Broader vaccination of infants between the ages of 12 and 18 months has actually decreased the number of chickenpox cases reported in all age groups, the study found, and the vaccine has proven both effective and cost efficient.
A one-time injection, recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC, can prevent the viral disease from developing in most cases. And, despite initial skepticism, four out of five children are now vaccinated for the disease by age 3, according to Dr. Matthew Davis, author of an editorial piece that accompanies the JAMA article as well as an assistant professor of pediatrics, internal medicine and public policy at Ann Arbor’s University of Michigan Medical School.
Direct medical expenses for people with chickenpox dropped from a national average of $201.8 million in 1994 to $49.1 million in 2002, according to the study.
Side effects from the vaccine may include fever, rash and pain or swelling at the shot location, according to the Medline Plus health encyclopedia, an online service of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. Very rarely, the shot can also cause seizures, pneumonia or allergic reaction, the site said.
Pregnant women or women who may become pregnant in the next month should not be given the vaccine, nor should those who have recently had steroids, blood transfusions or a weakened immune system, according to Medline. People who are allergic to gelatin or the antibiotic neomycin should not have the injection, either, the site said.
