Our next Virtual Health Information Network webinar takes place on Wednesday 10 September from midday.
- What: Vaccine effectiveness and vaccine safety of herpes zoster vaccination
- Who: James Mbinta, School of Health, Victoria University of Wellington
- When: Wednesday 10 September 2025, midday
- Where: https://tinyurl.com/VHIN-webinars
Please forward on these details to anyone you think would be interested, and let them know that they can join our mailing list by emailing vhin@auckland.ac.nz.
Zoster, commonly referred to as shingles, is a painful dermal eruption resulting from the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus. Without vaccination, one in three people will develop zoster during their lifetime, and the risk increases with age. Among those diagnosed with zoster, an estimated 5–30% develop postherpetic neuralgia (debilitating pain persisting for an extended period following the resolution of the herpes zoster rash), 9–25% experience herpes zoster
ophthalmicus (where the rash occurs in or around the eye), and 1–4% are hospitalised for zoster. We examined the epidemiology, effectiveness, and safety of herpes zoster vaccination, combining international evidence with large-scale population data from Aotearoa New Zealand.
A systematic review and meta-analysis synthesised global post-licensure evidence, while retrospective cohort and self-controlled case series studies applied to national health datasets evaluated real-world outcomes. Findings indicated that the recombinant zoster vaccine and the live attenuated vaccine significantly reduce incidence of zoster and its complications. Safety analyses of the vaccines revealed no evidence of increased risk of serious adverse events following immunisation.
These findings provide strong real-world evidence that zoster vaccines are both effective and safe, and they highlight the importance of increasing vaccine uptake among older adults to reduce disease burden and promote healthy ageing.
Join us for this comprehensive talk, the latest in our series of Virtual Health Information Network webinars. Email vhin@auckland.ac.nz to be notified about upcoming webinars.
Speaker: James Mbinta
James is a Research Fellow at the School of Health, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research examines the epidemiology, effectiveness, and safety of vaccines in real-world clinical settings. Understanding how vaccines perform in routine medical practice ensures that we optimise their impact and minimise the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases.
Recordings of all our webinars can be found via https://www.vhin.co.nz/webinars.
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