METHOD FOR PREVENTING ZOSTER AND ALLEVIATING VARICELLA RELATED POST-HERPETIC NEURALGIA

摘要

A method is described for alleviating post-herpetic neuralgia and for ameliorating or abrogating herpes zoster reactivation in at-risk people, which utilizes VZV antigenic stimulation. The VZV antigen is a live-attenuated VZV virus or a killed-whole VZV virus. At-risk individuals are those having had varicella (chickenpox), even if subclinically, or having had a live varicella vaccine. Particularly at-risk are elderly or immunocompromised individuals. At-risk status may be confirmed by positive serum anti-VZV antibodies or positive response to a VZV antigen skin test. Particularly indicative of at-risk status is a VZV responder cell frequency below about 1 responder cell in 68,000 while a protected state is approached when the RCF is closer to 1 responder cell in 40,000. At-risk individuals are administered the VZV antigen in an immunologically effective amount and monitored for return to at-risk status, at which point another immunisation may be undertaken. The efficacy of the method is demonstrated by positive results obtained in a broad based, multicenter, long-term clinical investigation.