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. 1996 Jul 9;93(14):7231–7235. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.14.7231

Mass vaccination to control chickenpox: the influence of zoster.

N M Ferguson 1, R M Anderson 1, G P Garnett 1
PMCID: PMC38965  PMID: 8692974

Abstract

The impact of transmission events from patients with shingles (zoster) on the epidemiology of varicella is examined before and after the introduction of mass immunization by using a stochastic mathematical model of transmission dynamics. Reactivation of the virus is shown to damp stochastic fluctuations and move the dynamics toward simple annual oscillations. The force of infection due to zoster cases is estimated by comparison of simulated and observed incidence time series. The presence of infectious zoster cases reduces the tendency for mass immunization to increase varicella incidence at older ages when disease severity is typically greater.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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