U.S. Chickenpox Deaths At All-Time Low, Study Says

Ten years after chickenpox vaccine was introduced in the United States, deaths from the childhood disease are at an all-time low.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in the five years before the vaccine, chickenpox caused or contributed to about 145 deaths a year. That dropped to 66 in just a few years. And in the 1- to 4-year-old group, the death rate dropped by up to 92 percent.

The report is published in this week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Nearly everyone used to get the highly contagious disease. Complications can be fatal. They include viral pneumonia, infection of the brain and bleeding.

Now, with 85 percent of U.S. children getting the vaccine, chickenpox cases have dropped 80 percent, from 4 million per year to 800,000.

The vaccine is considered about 80 percent effective, but vaccinated children can still get a mild case of chickenpox.