Solid organ transplant recipients receive lifelong immunosuppression and are at increased risk for severe primary VZV infection (chickenpox) and VZV reactivation (shingles). A non-live, recombinant subunit Herpes zoster vaccine (Shingrix; GSK vaccines) was recently licensed for the prevention of shingles in people aged 50 years or older and was shown to induce both cellular and humoral immunity. As both components of the immune system are important for protection against VZV, the investigators plan to study the humoral and cellular immunogenicity of the vaccine after organ transplantation in VZV-seronegative patients. Indeed, the current live VZV vaccine is contraindicated after transplantation; therefore, the non-live recombinant varicella-zoster subunit vaccine, if shown to induce cellular and humoral immunity, could potentially be offered to VZV-seronegative transplant patients.
The investigators plan to study the immunogenicity of the vaccine in VZV-seronegative solid organ transplant recipients. VZV-seronegative patients will be enrolled after organ transplantation. The investigators hypothesize that the recombinant subunit Herpes zoster vaccine is able to induce cellular immunogenicity after transplantation in VZV-seronegative patients.