To think it should be free and part of the childhood vaccines?

[CottonCandy01]

Hello,

My friend's son is getting his chickenpox vaccine next week, I believe it is costing around 140-150 pounds for the two doses. It got me thinking about my own young child (currently 6 months) and if this is a path I should take - on balance, i think I will get it for her.

The problem I have with this, is after researching why we don't have it as part of the childhood vaccines here this is what it returned:

*So why doesn’t the UK use the chickenpox vaccine for children if it is safe and effective at preventing severe disease? All vaccines in the UK are assessed for their cost-effectiveness to ensure that the health budget spent on services which provide the greatest health benefit for the population as a whole.

In the last review of the chickenpox vaccine by the committee which advises the government on vaccines (the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, JCVI), the future modelling of the impact of vaccination indicated that there could be an increase in the rate of shingles in adults over time, which would make the vaccine programme not cost-effective.

This is because, if chickenpox in children disappears as a result of a vaccine programme, adults would no longer have their immunity boosted by exposure to their chickenpox-suffering children and grandchildren and would be more likely to get shingles. Put simply, the conclusion of the previous review was that it would not be cost-effective for the NHS to immunise children against chickenpox*

So if I'm reading that correctly, it is basically because we can't afford it? I'm not naive or an idiot, I know the NHS is hideously underfunded but I just think it is so wrong. I'm in a privileged position that I can afford to vaccinate my child, as can my friend, but for those who can't I think it is really crappy. Chickenpox is not always a mild disease, it doesn't look like something that should even be in circulation in 2021, I remember my younger siblings, crying in pain all night and hitting temps over 40, one of them had to go to hospital.

Not sure what my AIBU is here but I just can't believe it isn't part of the vaccination schedule over here when it is in so many other countries. Seems so wrong.

My eldest had chicken pox so badly she was hospitalised. She had them in her eyes (yes actually in her eyes) and so many in her vagina she was in agony. I got my youngest vaccinated due to this. We have said we will pay for any top up vaccinations needed when she is an adult.

I have also had shingles and the pain and burning lasted about 12 weeks. It was awful. Nothing worked to stop the pain and burning. I was given gabapentin and amitriptyline and it did nothing.

I will also pay for any grandchildren I have to get the chicken pox vaccine if the parents want it and couldn't afford to pay. I think eventually it will be on the nhs schedule but when I have no idea.

@ancientgran

Thanks *@CuriousaboutSamphire*. Do you know why vaccinating children against chickenpox would have any effect on shingles amongst the old?

It would be a bit stepped, I think! And it is both shingles and chicken pox in the elderly that is being guarded against!

A vaccinated kid would not get chicken pox, usually. So for 20 years (is the assumptions) they would be protected. After that they would be as prones to chicken pox if they come into contact with it. It is often a much worse disease in adult and, if they got it first time as a much older adult it is much worse.

If you have chicken pox as a child you it is unlikely, but not impossible, you will get it again (it depends on yoru age and the severity of the disease when you first had it). But you can get shingles, which is a bastard of an illness, and you will be contagious - for chicken pox.

Where was I going? Oh! Yes!

If we have chicken pox as kids then we are less likely to get chicken pox as older adults, when it is a very much worse disease .

Shingles in the elderly can also be horrendous. Much more painful and long lasting than in earlier adulthood.

So the vaccine is offered to people in their 70s, but no later as it is less affective. You get offered it in the same way you get ofered the flu vacc.

Dod that answer a question? Sorry if it doesn't. but there are quite a few variations on the theme and I think I got lost

Truly sorry for those who have had bad experiences, but we can all only speak from our own, and the OP asked for thoughts. It is still described as a ‘mild illness’ for most children and that has been my family and friends’ experience. Would be nice to have an option of a free vaccine for those that weigh up the risks differently, but equally understand that the NHS sadly probably has lots of other things to spend money on...

@ancientgran

I am totally confused. I have had shingles more than once, it is horrible but I was told someone could catch chicken pox from me with shingles but you don't "catch" shingles, the virus remains in your body from when you had chicken pox and can reactivate as shingles. Did my doctor lie?

If you have never had chicken pox and you touch the fluid in the shingles blister you can catch chicken pox from shingles. It has to be very close contact with the fluid though. Shingles by itself is not contagious. You also cannot catch shingles from chicken pox.

I want to get my daughter vaccinated but to be honest I don't have £140 spare (money very tight every month! We're not in trouble and always pay bills just not saving or got spare cash). Just have to hope she doesn't get it until our finances improve

It doesn't matter what way you dress it up, children are exposed to what could actually is most likely to be a serious very minor childhood illness in some, because it might offer will likely increase adults immunity boost against shingles and therefore reduce the likelihood of them becoming seriously ill in later life.

There. Fixed that paragraph for you.

You know that the adults benefiting from the immunity boost are your children right? When they become adults.

"There is a shingles vaccine though."

I have an autoimmune condition and have had chicken pox twice and shingles. My Consultants, who are part of the team working on Covid and have been on the BBC, explained to me that the shingles vaccine didn't work well in the people who need it the most. I got given antivirals when I got shingles.

It's travel that complicates things. We've got lots of unvaccinated people travelling everywhere, who we mix with. Likewise there's lots of people who've never been exposed to chicken pox, my Nigerian friend was one and she suffered terribly from it. I don't know if a full vaccination program wouldn't be a good thing globally and that's what virologists and infectious disease specialists look at. There's five different strains of chicken pox that can be genomed sequenced. I don't know if that adds to the reason why not all virologists are in favour of vaccination. Would we then have to look at sharing the vaccine with other countries they way we do other children's vaccines? There'll be a lot behind the decision making.

You do also understand that for many many reasons not getting the shingles vaccine (or even the chicken pox vaccine) is not simply "a choice" right OP?

Here's a few of the possible reasons:

• affordability
• education / awareness

But as long as you you can afford it and you and yours are ok jack that's irrelevant right?

@FrangipaniBlue excellent, well done you, you got the point of my post! the fact that I am in a privileged enough position to be able to afford it but it saddens me and I think its wrong that not everyone gets that opportunity.

oh and it can be serious in some children. and the shingles argument is being looked at because they think it's been over estimated.

and frankly, when it comes to my child yes I am not prepared to have them get an unpleasant illness at best, to protect adults. does that answer your question?

My children are vaxxed for CP. I was quite unwell with it as a child and would like to spare my kids from that. Also I don’t want to have to take 2 weeks unpaid off work. So it might not be be cost effective for the NHS but it definitely is for me.

You know that the adults benefiting from the immunity boost are your children right? When they become adults

No, because by the time the current elderly population die, chicken pox vaccination will come in, and the current population of kids will then be relying on the shingles vaccine.

The group being protected is the over 80's (now over about 85 as the others should've had a shingles vaccine when it was effective) no-one else is, if it's worth it in QALY's is a different question, but it is not unreasonable to question that.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@mindutopia - mumps and rubella cause serious issues for adults. We vaccinate children to stop them circulating. There’s no more immunity from the disease than the vaccine. If what you say was true we would see just as many adults as children getting chicken pox, measles, etc.

We don’t. Please don’t spread anti vaccer theories- they’re so dangerous[/quote]
I'm not an anti-vaxxer, actually far from it, I work in infectious diseases actually. What I'm saying is that generally speaking, these are infections that don't as a whole don't make adults more ill than they do children. Both can get ill and with varying degrees of severity. What I'm saying is that chicken pox, as a whole tends to more more serious in adults than it is in children, and like rubella, can cause serious pregnancy complications, birth defects and stillbirth. That's why it's a bit of an unusual case. It's why we check immunity for rubella in pregnant women, and why women with questionable immunity are encouraged to get a booster jab before they consider ttc. But we struggle to get adults to engage in preventative health care - just look at all the people who don't get flu jabs every year or who don't accept an appt for a health MOT when offered.

But we do know that exposure to chicken pox as a child does offer quite long lasting immunity, usually until late in life. That isn't some wacky anti-vax idea. I'm the most pro-vax person you'll probably ever meet, but I work in public health, so I'm conscious that all decisions about immunisation need to be made through looking at the evidence from a public health perspective. It's why we don't have lots of chicken pox in adults now. It's why I didn't get it from my dc when they had it. But that might not be the case with vaccination that doesn't offer immunity for more than about 20 years, unless people are motivated enough to get booster jabs (and unfortunately, people are pretty unmotivated to engage in public health measures without a lot of prodding and negative consequences - as the past year of COVID has definitely demonstrated). I think the difference would be if there was a vaccination that could offer immunity until the latter decades of life - 60/70, when people normally start to get the shingles jab and generally have more contact with health services for other long-term conditions. We just don't have the data at this point to demonstrate that is the case.

well done you, you got the point of my post! the fact that I am in a privileged enough position to be able to afford it but it saddens me and I think its wrong that not everyone gets that opportunity.

Except that this isn't the message your opening post or subsequent posts is giving out.

You give the impression that you want children to be vaccinated against a mild childhood illness because you don't want your child to get it (lord knows why people are so horrified at this thought!) and you literally said that if adults don't get the vaccine "that's on them".

All of that screams "I'm alright jack".

Several posters have quite articulately explained to you why vaccinating all children and adults against both CP and shingles isn't feasible and wouldn't work, but you just keep coming back with "but my child!!"

It's not a case of adults choosing not to get themselves a vaccine, you can't have the shingles vaccine on the NHS until you're 70. Even then, many people can't have it at all as it's a live vaccine.

My dc haven’t had chickenpox and I am considering getting them vaccinated at 12i13 (eldest is now 10). I thought that they would get it when DH had shingles but they didn’t so I’m not sure if they are somehow immune as they have also been exposed to it by other dc who have gone on to have CP, Shingles is awful, DH is young and healthy but it made him feel awful.

@cottoncandy01 how patronising. Are only people saying "oh yes, it should definitely be added to the schedule" allowed to comment on your post? My bad. I'm not an 'anti vaxxer' by definition given that I paid handsomely for extra vaccinations for my children.

I factually stated that it failed to give them more than borderline immunity, and that one of my children had a reaction. Are we not allowed to state facts now or is stating the other side of the equation now wrongthink?

Yes, reactions are probably a lot less common than injury from chickenpox is - I never stated an opinion either way.

@Thesearmsofmine if they're having a blood test for anything else, you can ask them to add a tezt to check for immunity. They might potentially already be immune.

@FrangipaniBlue You're reading an entirely different thread.

My opening post "I know the NHS is hideously underfunded but I just think it is so wrong. I'm in a privileged position that I can afford to vaccinate my child"

My entire post is about whether or not it should be included in the childhood routine immunisations, that I think it is wrong that it isn't and that I know I am in a privileged place to be able to afford it for my kid. My kid is getting it either way - so I don't really understand what angle you are coming at it from here. I also said I wasn't of the opinion that children (note, I said children not MY child) should suffer to protect me if I was against getting the vaccine. Of course it is on adults if they choose not to get vaccines.

My question was whether or not it should be more widely available.

Really not following your response there at all, it is so inaccurate.

We chose to vaccinate DS at 13 months. He will have another booster just before university as we're currently unsure how long immunity lasts.

People can have their opinions, I said I was sorry to hear about your child's reaction.

However, it is important to point out that it is very rare to have reactions to vaccines. I know so many people who are afraid of them.

Bizarre at this point that I'm having to defend the fact that a. Vaccines in this country are safe and b. that I think it's wrong they are not available to everyone.

My DS was very ill with chicken pox, it can be very serious for some children. My other DS was immune suppressed for 3 years and had to go to hospital for treatment every time he came into contact with a child with chicken pox as it could be deadly if he caught it. A vaccine programme would protect vulnerable children and also stop healthy children getting ill with it.

mindutopia as far as I’m aware, there is no reason to think that immunity from the vaccine lasts any less time than immunity from catching CP.

We can currently only prove it lasts up to 20 years because the vaccine’s only been widely used that long. But that doesn’t mean it only lasts 20 years.

On the other hand, there is evidence that the vaccine protects much better against shingles in later life, than catching CP naturally.

@CottonCandy01

My vaccinations are up to date, and no I don't have the shingles one because I did not even know existed prior to looking into why I was having to pay for my child to have the chickenpox one in the future. NHS obviously don't make it very well known that these vaccines exist.

And for the record, that's irrelevant at this point because if I was offered the shingles vaccine I would have it in a heartbeat. I am also not of the opinion that children should suffer to save me.

You need to be age 70+ to get the shingles vaccine

You can get shingles if you've had chickenpox. I've had it. Didn't get very sick with it, though.

YANBU.

Mine had the vaccine abroad.

There's a shingles vaccine, people over 70 are eligible to have it.

@rawalpindithelabrador

You can get shingles if you've had chickenpox. I've had it. Didn't get very sick with it, though.

YANBU.

Mine had the vaccine abroad.

There's a shingles vaccine, people over 70 are eligible to have it.

You can only get shingles if you've had chicken pox as it's a reactivation of the CP virus