Issue date: September 08, 1999
Most of us can remember spending days in "quarantine" away from friends and playgrounds when our mothers sighted that first chicken pox blister. But while vaccines are currently available to make that itchy childhood illness a thing of the past, the virus itself can grow up, right along with us.
Varicella-zoster, the virus that causes chicken pox, doesn't go away with the last chicken pox blister. Instead, it remains dormant in a cluster of nerve cells, only to "reawaken" in later years as shingles, a painful rash consisting of clusters of fluid-filled blisters and generally located on one side of the body or face.
According to Dr. Michael N. Oxman of the San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, about 500,000 Americans develop shingles, and over the next five years, more than 70,000 people over the age of 60 in the Bay Area will be afflicted. "Shingles is a serious disease, particularly for mid-life and older adults," said Dr. Jeffrey Loutit, chief of infectious diseases at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "I've seen many patients whose lives were made miserable by it."
Dr. Loutit, together with Stephen Ezeji-Okoye from the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, are seeking about 1,800 volunteers to participate in an investigational trial directed by the Department of Veterans Affairs in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and Merck & Co. The Veterans Affairs cooperative study will recruit 37,000 volunteers at 21 medical centers throughout the country.
The trial will test an experimental vaccine similar to that administered to prevent chicken pox. Study volunteers will receive a vaccine or placebo injection and followed for about four years. Those who develop shingles are promised state-of-the-art care. If the vaccine proves useful in preventing shingles, volunteers who received placebos will be offered the vaccine at the end of the study.
"If we can boost immunity to the varicella-zoster virus in older people just as a case of shingles does, it makes sense that we should be able to prevent shingles," said Dr. Oxman. "The vaccine being tested seems to be able to do that." For more information on being part of the study, call toll-free 877-841-6251, or call the Palo Alto VA Health Care System at 849-0293.
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