Chicken Pox Vaccine Reduces Deaths to Record Low Levels

From: http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2005/Feb...39687ae12.html

Chicken Pox Vaccine Reduces Deaths to Record Low Levels

A new study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine
shows that the chicken pox vaccine, which was introduced in 1995, has
cut deaths caused by the chicken pox to record low levels.

Prior to the introduction of the vaccine, the average number of deaths
caused by the common childhood disease was 145 per year in this
country. The number of deaths was reduced to 66 just a few years after
the vaccine was introduced. For children aged 1-4, the death rate
dropped almost 92 percent.

Overall, the numbers of children who contract the disease has been
reduced as well. Last year, 800,000 children had a case of chicken pox
in the United States. Prior to the vaccine, that number was estimated
at four million per year. Approximately 85 percent of all children in
the United States are now vaccinated against chicken pox.

'It's really a very dramatic success story for the vaccination
program,' said Jane F. Seward, one of the researchers on the study.

In some cases, children who received the vaccine still develop a case
of the chicken pox. The vaccine is considered 80 percent effective. A
second shot to improve the effectiveness rate is being considered but
has not yet been introduced.