Spleen Australia study on shingles is published in the academic journal Vaccine
Published by Dr Gabriela Khoury and Prof Ian Woolley
Anyone who has had chickenpox during childhood is at risk of experiencing shingles as an adult. This occurs because the chickenpox virus, Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV), remains dormant or asleep in nerves. In different scenarios the virus can be re-awakened, resulting in shingles, a painful, blistering rash which can affect many parts of the body including the face. A major complication of shingles is post-herpetic neuralgia which leads to persistent or recurrent pain in the region the shingles occurred.
In Australia, the recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV), Shingrix the recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV), Shingrix, has recently become available. It is free under the National Immunisation Program (NIP) for eligible people at moderate to high risk of severe illness and complications from shingles.
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples aged 50 years and older
- Others 65+ years
- Immunocompromised people over 18 years old
It is unclear if people without functioning spleens have a higher risk of shingles and therefore registrants can only access the vaccine if they belong to one of the above groups.
The study
To learn more about how many Spleen Australia registrants have had shingles and how many have been vaccinated against shingles. We conducted a survey in 2023.
What did we find?
A total of 2657 registrants completed the online survey and three quarters reported having chickenpox in the past. Of all those who responded, about one fifth reported they had experienced shingles, and around 4% of respondents had more than one shingles episode. Predictors of shingles were older age groups (people >61 years old) and those who had a splenectomy for blood cancer. We also looked at how other conditions influenced risk of shingles and found that having an autoimmune disease increased the risk. This is probably due to medications taken to manage the disease.
A reminder to get vaccinated if you are over 64 years old!
Across all respondents around one quarter of people reported being immunised against shingles. Many people in the 61-70 and 71–80-year-old age groups had not received a vaccine highlighting an important opportunity to get vaccinated.
Thank you for participating!
The article can be read here: Varicella zoster virus reactivation episodes and vaccination uptake in Spleen Australia registrants – ScienceDirect