Q about Chicken Pox vaccine?

[BattleoftheAxes]

My 2 DC had the chicken pox vaccine overseas when they were around 2. Now they are 12 and 8 and live back here in the UK. They have never had chicken pox and I am worried they are going to get it when they are older as there doesn't seem to be any going around at their school.

I have asked a couple of different GPs what to do about this and they don't know.

Need to know how the vaccine works e.g. how many does do you need for it to be effective, how long does it last and if I need to redo it, get a booster.

Thanks

If they've had the vaccine then they wouldn't catch chicken pox even if it was going around their school.
In the UK it us 2 injections about 4 weeks apart. The first jab guves somethibg like 90% immunity and with the second it rises to sonething like 98%.
I think officially they say immunity lasts 20 years but that is just because that is only how long the vaccine has exisited and therefore at the moment they can't proove it is lifetime protection.
If your children only had 1 jab they may not have had the second booster. Perhaps the country they had it done does it differently though.

This may help:

Duration of Protection. It is not known how long a vaccinated person is protected against varicella. But, live vaccines in general provide long-lasting immunity. Several studies have shown that people vaccinated against varicella had antibodies for at least 10 to 20 years after

My DC had the MMRV. The second child only had the first MMRV then the second MMR here in the UK.

I think I would look at getting their immunity checked and vaccinated again. It won't go round their school now as their peers will have had it at preschool/infant school. I wouldn't want to risk them getting it as adults or when pregnant.

My two dc's recently had the chickenpox vaccination. They had two injections two weeks apart. The nurse told me the first injection covered them for childhood then the second one would cover them for life. According to her one of the reasons the cp vaccine isn't freely available is that so many people don't turn up to second injections and it's much more dangerous to have cp as an adult.

Elizabeth

Do you know how I can get it checked? My doctors surgery has been no help whatsoever when asked.

They often check immunity to various things in pregnancy with a blood test so it must be possible for the GP to do so if they wanted to, but it might not be something they offer as the vaccine isn't available on the NHS. Can you look into getting it done privately?

It will obviously cost you but I'd suggest you call a private gp practice who offers the vaccine and say you want a consultation/ potentially a cp second vaccine if your discussion concludes that they haven't had the booster?
In the uk when done privately it is one vaccine followed by another shortly after. I was told the same as pp that they say it gives 20 years immunity as that is the length so far it has shown to cover since other countries started to include in routine vaccinations 20 years ago (i.e. In 10 years time so long as the evidence is there they will be able to say it gives 30 years immunity)

Yes, will have to do it private.

If they have had both doses they should be fine. If you are concerned about your eldest not being immune it might be worth getting another dose, past this age chickenpox can be dangerous.

I think you need to go to a private practice and ask for them to have a blood test to check their immunity levels. However, the one who had the full MMRV course should be immune and the other one should have around 75% immunity. Alternatively you could just give them both another vaccine to act as a booster.

No one knows. I'd probably get their antibodies checked about 15 years after the vaccination - any private GP could do it.

They need 2 doses of the vaccine for the best chance of immunity. I have read that the vaccine induced immunity doesn't always also show up when tested for as the assays they use to test for antibodies are not sensitive enough to detect seroconversion to vaccine induced immunity to chicken in everyone. This info is from the CDC website.