Live varicella vaccine benefits HIV-infected children with depressed CD4+ T cell counts

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The live varicella vaccine benefits HIV-infected children with current or past significant depression of CD4+ T cells.

According to a study from the United States, “Varicella can be a severe illness in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected children. The licensed, live attenuated varicella vaccine is safe and immunogenic in HIV-infected children with minimal symptoms and good preservation of CD4+ T cells (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention immunologic category 1).”

“To study the safety and immunogenicity of this vaccine in varicella-zoster virus (VZV)-naive, HIV-infected children with moderate symptoms and/or more pronounced past or current decreases in CD4+ T cell counts, such children (age, one to eight years) received two doses of vaccine three months apart,” said Myron J. Levin at the University of Colorado and collaborators in the U.S.

"The children were observed in a structured fashion for adverse events, they explained. “Blood was tested for VZV antibody and VZV-specific cell-mediated immunity (CMI) at baseline, eight weeks after each dose, and annually for three years. Subjects who had no evidence of immunity one year after vaccination received a third dose and were retested. The vaccine was well tolerated; there were no vaccine-related, serious adverse events.”

“Regardless of immunologic category, at least 79% of HIV-infected vaccine recipients developed VZV-specific antibody and/or CMI two months after two doses of vaccine, and 83% were responders one year after vaccination,” reported Levin and his colleagues.

They concluded, “HIV-infected children with a CD4+ T cell percentage of {{>=}}15% and a CD4+ T cell count of {{>=}}200 cells/microliter are likely to benefit from receiving varicella vaccine.”

Levin and his coauthors published their study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (Administration of live varicella vaccine to HIV-infected children with current or past significant depression of CD4+ T cells. J Infect Dis, 2006;194(2):247-255).

For more information, contact Myron J. Levin, University of Colorado School of Medicine, C227, 4200 East 9th Avenue, Denver, CO 80262, USA. E-mail: .

Publisher contact information for the Journal of Infectious Diseases is: University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637-2954, USA.

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