Upon doing research, I stumbled upon a super informative article by the CDC discussing the Shingles vaccine Zostavax, designed to prevent and protect older adults from the shingles virus. According to the CDC, “there are about a million new cases of shingles each year in the United States and the risks of complication associated with shingles rises greatly after the age of 60.” (CDC, page 1) This is stated to describe the significance of ill effects for the older aged populations and to emphasize how important it is that we focus on that age demographic.
As the article goes on to state the Zostavax vaccine is actually FDA approved and CDC recommended for one-time dosage for adults age 60 and above. Although, there are about 51 million adults aged 60 and older, only about 1 million doses of the vaccine were administered in its debut on the market in 07′. Why the resistance to a possible answer to the shingles problems one might ask? Well, with any new marketed drug, there are always issues. The Zostavax vaccine is costly compared to other well-known vaccines (flu shot), costing patients anywhere between $165 and $300 per vaccination (page 7). Older folks may simply not be able to afford this. In my opinion, the health industry and developers of this vaccine need to work together to reduce costs asociated with it, as older people cannot afford this among retirement and other old-age expenses. Another barrier to widespread administration of this vaccine is education issues. Being a student in a patient health education class, I found this quite interesting. According to Dr. Benson, “Physicians do not always appreciate the seriousness and potential severity of shingles, which can impact the strength of their recommendations to patients.” (page 9). This causes a lesser chance of doctors warming up to the vaccine, as well as recommending it to patients, which in the end affect their patient health education. Patients themselves also do not understand the severity of shingles or feel that they have a likelihood of being affected. All these factors play a role, but once more work is done to combat these, Zostavax could be a key solution to helping those older adults protect themselves from the disease known as shingles.
Feel free to leave any comments and let me know about other barriers you might see present in reducing the administration of Zostavax.
Sources:
CDC Seeks to Protect Older Adults With Shingles Vaccine Message. (n.d.). Retrieved July 9, 2015, from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/shingles/downloads/shingles-vac-msg-2008.pdf
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EXPERTS QUOTED:
“At CDC:
Contact Curtis Allen, (404) 639-8487, callen@cdc.gov Outside CDC: Kelman, Jeffrey (CMS), press contact: Don McLeod, 202-690-6145, Donald.mcleod@cms.hhs.gov Myers, Martin (National Network for Immunization Information), 409-772-1594, magmyers@utmb.edu Orenstein, Walter (Emory U.), 404-712-2466, worenst@emory.edu Oxman, Michael (U. of California, San Diego), 858-642-6313, mnoxman@ucsd.edu Schmader, Ken (Duke U.), 919 286-6932, schma001@mc.duke.edu”
Shingles Society 