Shingles Vaccine Developed That Is 97 Percent Effective

GlaxoSmithKline has developed a new shingles vaccine that is 97 percent effective in adults ages 50 years to 70 years, the main group affected by the virus. In the study reported on in the New England Journal of Medicine, only six out of 7,698 patients given the new vaccine became infected with shingles over a three-year period compared with more than 200 people in a similar-sized control group who were not given the vaccine.

Shingles is a skin rash that causes painful blisters around the body caused by the virus responsible for chickenpox, which 95 percent of people get before they are adults. The virus is protected by the immune system until it is reactivated, an event more likely to occur in people over age 50 when their T cell immunity wanes. The new vaccine stimulates those T cells. “We didn’t expect that degree of efficacy,” said Tony Cunningham, one of the scientists involved in the vaccine and the chief scientist at the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research in Australia. “This is the first big success for this type of strategy.” The world’s first shingles vaccine, Zostavax, offers protection in only about 50 percent of the population. The new vaccine now needs regulatory approval before it becomes available for patients.