Intradermal zoster vaccines: good for the old and the young?

Abstract

In The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Chan R Beals and colleagues report the results of a clinical trial in which varicella-zoster virus specific immunogenicity and adverse events were compared between the Merck live attenuated full dose subcutaneous herpes zoster vaccine, 1/3 subcutaneous zoster vaccine, full dose intradermal zoster vaccine, 1/3 intradermal zoster vaccine, 1/10 intradermal zoster vaccine, and 1/27 intradermal zoster vaccine. Full and 1/3 intradermal zoster vaccine caused a significantly higher increase in varicella-zoster virus antibody titer (measured by gpELISA) 6 weeks after vaccination compared with full subcutaneous zoster vaccine (p<0.0001 for full intradermal zoster vaccine and p=0.007 for the 1/3 intradermal zoster vaccine). In a subgroup analysis, it was shown that after 18 months the gpELISA zoster vaccine titre was still higher after full and 1/3 intradermal zoster vaccine compared with full subcutaneous varicella-zoster vaccine.