How safe is the vaccine?
Since 1995 over 40 million doses have been distributed in the USA.6The vaccine has been shown to be safe in healthy children.7 If reactions occur, they are usually limited to fever or local reactions at the injection site. Skin rash occurs in about 7% of healthy vaccinees, either at the injection site or more generalised, and may be vesicular.1,8 Rashes caused by the vaccine usually appear approximately three weeks after immunisation. There is a small potential to transmit the vaccine virus at this time, mainly from direct contact with vesicles at the injection site.1 Vaccinated individuals appear not to be able to transmit the vaccine virus by the respiratory route, and papules (as opposed to vesicles) at the injection site are rarely infectious.
If a vesicular rash occurs following varicella zoster virus immunisation, it should be covered with a dressing and clothes if possible, careful hand washing should be encouraged, and the vaccinated individual should avoid contact with immunocompromised people, pregnant women (as much as practical) and be excluded from school only until the lesions have crusted.
Varicella zoster virus vaccine can be safely administered at the same time as other vaccines, although, if it is not given simultaneously, it should be given at least four weeks before or after other live vaccines.4
There have only been five reports of severe reactions in immunised children and they were later found to be immunocompromised.6 No one is known to have died as a result of the vaccine virus.
http://www.australianprescriber.com/magazine/28/1/2/5
