Illnesses caused by infectious diseases are common in children in schools or other childcare settings. Currently there is no common EU approach to the control of communicable diseases in schools or other childcare settings, and existing information is uncertain.
In 2014, ECDC’s Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Programme established a working group to provide guidance on the introduction of varicella vaccination in EU Member States. The pre-consultation document is available here.
The Vaccine Preventable Diseases programme of ECDC has set up a working group to provide guidance to the European Union Member States on the potential introduction of varicella vaccination.
A vaccine is available which protects against the varicella virus; however policies on vaccine use vary across the EU. Varicella vaccination for all children is only recommended at national level in five countries (for the list of those countries see the ECDC vaccine scheduler). In most countries vaccination is available for adolescents without history of varicella and for the people who have higher risk of coming into contact with the varicella virus, like healthcare workers.
This study updates previous work on modelling the incidence of varicella and Herpes Zoster (HZ) following the introduction of childhood varicella vaccination.