Varicella vaccine
Varicella vaccine, also known as chickenpox vaccine, is a vaccine that protects against chickenpox. One dose of vaccine prevents 95% of moderate disease and 100% of severe disease. Two doses of vaccine are more effective than one. If given to those who are not immune within five days of exposure to chickenpox it prevents most cases of disease. Vaccinating a large portion of the population also protects those who are not vaccinated. It is given by injection just under the skin.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends routine vaccination only if a country can keep more than 80% of people vaccinated. If only 20% to 80% of people are vaccinated it is possible that more people will get the disease at an older age and outcomes overall may worsen. Either one or two doses of the vaccine is recommended. In the United States two doses are recommended starting at twelve to fifteen months of age. As of 2012 most European countries either recommend it for all children or just those at high risk, but not all countries provide the vaccine due to its cost.
Minor side effects may include pain at the site of injection, fever, and rash. Severe side effects are rare and occur mostly in those with poor immune function. Its use in people with HIV/AIDS should be done with care. It is not recommended during pregnancy; however, the few times it has been given during pregnancy no problems resulted. The vaccine is available either by itself or along with the MMR vaccine, in a version known as the MMRV vaccine. It is made from weakened virus.
The chickenpox vaccine first became commercially available in 1984. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system. In the United States it costs between 100 and 200 USD.
Immunity (medical)
In Europe, the induction of active immunity emerged in an attempt to contain smallpox. Immunization, however, had existed in various forms for at least a thousand years. The earliest use of immunization is unknown, however, around 1000 A.D. the Chinese began practicing a form of immunization by drying and inhaling powders derived from the crusts of smallpox lesions. Around the fifteenth century in India, the Ottoman Empire, and east Africa, the practice of inoculation (poking the skin with powdered material derived from smallpox crusts) became quite common. This practice was first introduced into the west in 1721 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In 1798, Edward Jenner introduced the far safer method of deliberate infection with cowpox virus, (smallpox vaccine), which caused a mild infection that also induced immunity to smallpox. By 1800 the procedure was referred to as vaccination. To avoid confusion, smallpox inoculation was increasingly referred to as variolation, and it became common practice to use this term without regard for chronology. The success and general acceptance of Jenner's procedure would later drive the general nature of vaccination developed by Pasteur and others towards the end of the 19th century. In 1891, Pasteur widened the definition of vaccine in honour of Jenner and it then became essential to qualify the term, by referring to polio vaccine, measles vaccine etc.