Shingles

After chickenpox, the virus stays inactive in nerve tissue near the spinal cord.

Anyone, even young people, can get infected, so the varicella or zoster vaccines offer the best prevention.

The study sample included female patients between 36 and 61 years of age, and in all cases, the baseline rheumatic disease was either mild or stable under medical treatment.

Complications of varicella-zoster virus in patients with lupus may be attributable to immunological abnormalities, lymphopenia conditions, and immunosuppressive therapies.

Zoster vaccine recombinant, adjuvanted has been approved by the FDA for the prevention of herpes zoster in adults 18 years of age and older who are, or will be, at an increased risk of shingles because of immunodeficiency or immunosuppression.

This risk decreased gradually according to age and length of time after an HZ episode, but epidemiological studies and the pathology of VZV vasculopathy both indicate that HZ is a key risk factor for stroke up to 1 year following an HZ episode.

Although researchers identified 3 agents that increased the risk of herpes zoster among patients with psoriasis, they also found 2 therapies that seemed to decrease the risk.

Antiviral medications, including Acyclovir, famciclovir, and valacyclovir, are effective if taken as soon as the diagnosis and can shorten the duration of the infection while improving symptoms.

Shingrix is a non-live, recombinant subunit vaccine given intramuscularly in two doses for the prevention of herpes zoster in adults aged 50 years and older.

HSV-1 can spread to the fetal brain during pregnancy and cause lifelong neurological problems, such as cognitive dysfunction, learning disabilities, and dementia.

According to the study, helminth-infected mice developed significantly more severe symptoms after infection with a genital herpes virus (herpes simplex virus), results that the researchers believe are also transferrable to humans.

The authors of the study suggest that any patient with HZ should be tested for COVID-19, even if the individual has mild symptoms or no history of upper respiratory symptoms.

The efforts of pharmacists to keep their doors open during the pandemic, build COVID-19 testing sites, and prepare for and administer COVID-19 vaccinations took extraordinary investment and determination.

Pharmacy Times® interviewed Scott J. Knoer, MS, PharmD, FASHP, the EVP and CEO of the American Pharmacists Association, on the Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Area Enhancement Act that was recently introduced in Congress.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges and opportunities, and this requires agility and flexibility.

A study comparing the efficacy of the 2 commercially available herpes zoster (HZ) vaccines, the live zoster vaccine and the non-live recombinant zoster vaccine, found that RZV has both higher efficacy and broader use cases, according to the authors.

Researchers found that viral variants expressed their genes at different rates and quantities, which likely contributes to the different timing and severity of symptoms within hosts.

In addition to prevention with a live attenuated vaccine, treatment options for herpes zoster can include antivirals or symptom management with corticosteroids or analgesics.

Pharmacists must first build trust with their communities in order to address vaccine hesitancy, according to Sally Arif, PharmD, BCPS.

Experts say the clinical presentation of herpes zoster in pregnant women should be carefully monitored and reported for further assessment, especially if it is associated with other signs of COVID-19.

New research suggests immunosuppressants do not increase the risk of worse COVID-19 outcomes.

A new thesis presented at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, found that although immunizing children against chicken pox saves money, offering shingles vaccinations to all adults 65 years of age would not.

Glucose levels should be screened at herpes zoster diagnosis.

A genetically edited form of herpes simplex virus altered to prevent it from avoiding an immune response outperformed a leading vaccine candidate.

With more awareness of the susceptibility to coinfection with varicella zoster virus and pneumocystic jirovecii, clinicians should aggressively seek signs of opportunistic infections in susceptible patients and treat them accordingly.