Varicella vaccine mild and have not been associated with serious complications. Approximately 5% of children who receive the vaccine develop a fever or rash. Adverse reaction reports for the period 1995 to 2005 found no deaths attributed to the vaccine despite approximately 55.7 million doses being delivered. Cases of vaccine-related chickenpox have been reported in patients with a weakened immune system, but no deaths. The literature contains several reports of adverse reactions following varicella vaccination, including vaccine-strain zoster in children and adults. The Varicella zoster vaccine is made from the Oka/Merck strain of live attenuated varicella virus. The virus was initially obtained
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control The office of the Chief Scientist oversees the seven Disease Programmes, the Microbiology Coordination Section and the Scientific Advice Coordination Section. The Disease Programmes focus on specific disease groups: Two shared-resource units – Surveillance and Response Support, and Public Health Capacity and Communication – provide specialist expertise. The Information and Communication Technologies Unit provides infrastructure, application development and support. The Resource Management and Coordination Unit controls ECDC’s human and financial resources. ECDC publishes numerous scientific and technical reports covering various issues related to the prevention and control of communicable diseases. Comprehensive reports from key technical and scientific meetings are also