Parents urge free jabs for chickenpox

The Ministry of Health has been urged to pay for toddlers to be vaccinated against chickenpox.

Parents who want their children to have the injection must at present pay the $70 to $90 cost.

The Australian Government started paying for toddlers and 10- to 13-year-olds to receive the vaccine this month.

Dr Nikki Turner, the director of Auckland University's Immunisation Advisory Centre, said yesterday New Zealand should follow suit for toddlers - and for teenagers who had not had the illness.

Most New Zealand children catch chickenpox and have mild symptoms. It causes itchy blisters all over the body which children can't keep from scratching.

"One reason for the vaccine is that New Zealand has a high incidence of skin infections," Dr Turner said.

"There are quite a lot of secondary skin infections from chickenpox.

"They scratch, they get bugs, they need antibiotics. A lot end up in hospital with secondary infections.

"The other reason for the vaccine is that in rare cases you can get a brain infection from chickenpox."

Two chickenpox vaccines are licensed in New Zealand.

Dr Turner said they had been used overseas for some years. They had good safety records, with only one severe adverse reaction expected from every several hundred thousand doses.

Containing a live but weakened virus, they were about 85 per cent effective at preventing chickenpox.

The ministry's senior adviser, public health medicine, Dr Alison Roberts, said it would not add chickenpox vaccine to the schedule of state-funded childhood vaccinations next year.

The schedule would be reviewed again next year for changes to be made in 2008.

The ministry's Immunisation Technical Working Group was waiting for the new combined vaccine for mumps, measles, rubella and chickenpox to be licensed in New Zealand and would then consider it for funding on the schedule.

"It's a long time to wait," said Dr Turner. If the ministry would not fund the straight chickenpox vaccine next year generally, it should at least finance it for people in contact with children whose immune system was weakened.

These children were the most at risk from chickenpox, although it was unsafe for them to have the vaccine.

The four-disease vaccine was worth considering.

"It would save our children an extra needle."

Chickenpox

* A virus that infects most children.

* Usually causes a slight fever and itchy blisters which can lead to skin infection.

* Puts 150 to 200 people in hospital each year in New Zealand.

* Causes one or two deaths or cases of long-term disability each year.

* More severe if caught as an adult.

* Often flares up in the elderly as shingles, a painful rash.