Table 1.

Differences Between Wild-Type VZV and vOka

Property	Wild-Type VZV	vOka
Pathogenicity	High	Significantly reduced
Transmissibility	Extremely high	Significantly reduced
Severity of infection	Mild to severe	Subclinical to mild
Incidence of zoster after primary infection	Estimated to be 30% over the course of a lifetime	Significantly reduced
RFLP	Distinguishable from vOka	Distinguishable from wild type
Temperature sensitivity in culture	Grows well at 39°C	Temperature sensitive, grows poorly at 39°C
Quantity of gC	Greater than vOka	Less than wild type

Abbreviations: RFLP, restriction fraction length polymorphisms; vOka, Oka strain attenuated live viral vaccine; VZV, varicella-zoster virus.