Chicken pox? Chicken pox!

There are still parents who, although generally vaccinating, question the need for a chicken pox vaccine. They do think of chicken pox as a harmful rite of passage, a handful of pox, crusted over in a few days - about as "dramatic" as in this child:



the benefit is assumed to be life long immunity (which it is, for about 90% of patients). Problem is - these are chicken pox, too:

 

Hundreds of lesions, the entire back covered, incredibly painful, the infection so severe that the child had to be committed to the hospital, like 2000 of her peers in pre-vaccine Germany per year, on average for 5 days, 77% without pre-existing conditions. Chicken pox cases neurological complications (25.4% of hospitalisations), skin infections (23.2%) and gastrointestinal complications (15%), indeed, pox can be internal as well. About 20 per year died.

There is nothing to predict whether your child will be in the top group - "chicken pox? What's the fuss about?", or in the bottom group "chicken pox?! Looks like small pox to me!".  

That is why vaccination is worth it!

Chicken pox vaccination policy in the UK - did it cost Elana's life?

The UK is often cited in discussions about the chicken pox vaccine. After all, they are a perfectly developed country, they even speak (vaguely) the same language as the US and the NHS's chicken pox policy spells out what (US) vaccine critics have known all along: the disease is harmless in children and vaccinating against it will increase the incidence of shingles in the older population.

The chickenpox vaccine is not part of the UK childhood vaccination programme, because experts think that introducing a chickenpox vaccination for children could increase the risk of shingles in older people. ...

Chickenpox is usually a mild illness, particularly in children. 

This view has been repeatedly challenged. The BBC claimed cost as one major reason the NHS doesn't provide the varicella vaccine and cited Dr David Elliman, immunisation expert at the the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), stating that MMR fears need to be overcome in the UK before a further live viral vaccine could be successfully introduced (more suffering due to the Wakefield/MMR/autism manufactuversy):

"The chickenpox vaccine is definitely desirable, and I think it it will happen, but unfortunately I don't think we are ready for the debate yet - not until we get MMR rates back where they need to be. We need to win that one first."

This is particularly cynical since more patients are dying of chicken pox in England and Wales every year than from pertussis, mumps, measles and hib combined.

Mortality from chickenpox is not negligible. During
1995/­7, 81 deaths were recorded by the Office for
National Statistics. However, we received 119 certifi-­
cates that mentioned chickenpox or varicella. After
detailed inquiries, we estimated that at least 75 were
genuine cases of chickenpox. This suggests at least 25
deaths from chickenpox annually. In 1996/­7 there were
seven certified deaths from whooping cough, mumps,
measles, and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) men-­
ingitis in England and Wales compared with 67 from
chickenpox.

In the meantime, children are either protected by a varicella vaccine purchased privately from a travel clinic (if parents are 1. aware of the option and 2. tenacious enough to find a clinic 3. well off enough to afford this), or they have to suffer through chicken pox. Elana had to have chicken pox and while her brother, who had them first, had a mild case, Elana developed pox in her lungs and died. Just like that:

Elana was three years old when she came out in spots on Easter Sunday 2009. She was fit and healthy and, as her brother had fended off a fairly mild dose of chickenpox the week before, I wasn’t worried. What was to follow has changed my family’s lives forever.

That evening, Elana was a bit tired and wanted to curl up in front of the television but she didn’t seem particularly ill – her spots were not even particularly itchy. But as the week progressed, she seemed to get more lethargic and her condition worsened.

By Thursday, the spots had started to crust over and I thought she should have been getting better but there was no improvement. On Friday night I called the emergency GP and went to a community health centre to have her looked at. The doctor diagnosed Elana with possible pneumonia and recommended that we take her straight to the hospital.

By 11pm on the Friday night we were in hospital and Elana was very unwell. At 6.04am on Saturday morning she suffered a cardiac arrest. Elana was pronounced dead at 7am.

The UK Department of Health touted the party line:

We wrote to the UK government but the Department of Health says severe cases of chickenpox infection are rare and occur mostly in immuno-compromised children. However, I can say from witnessing it first-hand that my daughter was fit and healthy before she picked up the virus. In fact, Elana only ever needed to see a doctor when she was having routine immunisations. I know some other parents who have had the same experience.  

Elana's mum is now spreading awareness of the potential dangers of chicken pox and the availability of the vaccine. It is striking that in the UK, the vaccine is such a well-kept secret that even she, as a nurse, was not aware of it. So: help her - don't let the death of her precious daughter have been wasted. Talk about the vaccine as a real option, tell your neighbours, your GP, your MP, post it on Mumsnet and other fora.

See, chicken pox is a good thing (one from the "Death isn't everything series")

Brenden Hall just became Paralympic champion in the 400m Freestyle S9, beating the runner up by a full 7 seconds. The 19 year old Australian is already competing in his second Paralympic Games after having been the youngest male athlete on the 2008 Australian Team in Beijing.

The reason he can compete in the Paralympic Games is that he had to have his right leg amputated due to complications of chicken pox at the age of 6. He also lost 70% of his hearing. Hall had just started swimming competitively before he contracted chicken pox at the end of first grade, which landed him in hospital for 6 weeks - he describes his illness:

"It was during December, 1999, I sort of just finished grade one and I contracted chicken pox, I got DVT* in my lower right limb.
They (the hospital) rang my parents up and said, 'You better get in here, we've got a decision to make'.
It was either my leg or my life, because the day before, I'd flatlined for about 29min, roughly. I was in cardiac arrest for 29min in hospital before they decided to take my leg off, due to the blood clot because it was in one of the main veins going back to my heart." *deep vein thrombosis

This is not a common complication and it did end in something good besides Paralympic medals for Brenden Hall - he says:

"I had a specialist come over from Canada onto my case, because (the doctors here) hadn't seen anything like it before, but they had a case overseas.
Two months later, because of my case, they brought the chicken pox vaccine out to Australia to start distributing for kids.
It's (chickenpox) something for kids to experience, but there definitely are those rare situations behind it that you don't want to risk."

Indeed!