{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,24]],"date-time":"2026-03-24T22:42:45Z","timestamp":1774392165484,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":62,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,6]],"date-time":"2021-01-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1609891200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000002","name":"National Institutes of Health","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["AI153817"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["AI153817"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000002","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Vaccines"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Corticosteroids, when given in high dosages, have long been recognized as a risk factor for severe infection with wild-type varicella-zoster virus in both children and adults. The goal of this review is to assess the degree to which both low-dosage and high-dosage corticosteroids contribute to serious adverse events (SAEs) following live varicella vaccination and live zoster vaccination. To this end, we examined multiple published reports of SAEs following varicella vaccination (VarivaxTM) and zoster vaccination (ZostavaxTM). We observed that five of eight viral SAEs following varicella vaccination, including two deaths, occurred in children receiving corticosteroids, while one of three fatal viral SAEs following live zoster vaccination occurred in an adult being treated with low-dosage prednisone. The latter death after live zoster vaccination occurred in a 70 year-old man with rheumatoid arthritis, being treated with prednisone 10 mg daily. Thus, corticosteroids contributed to more severe infectious complications in subjects immunized with each of the two live virus vaccines. Further, when we surveyed the rheumatology literature as well as individual case reports, we documented examples where daily dosages of 7.5\u201320 mg prednisone were associated with increased rates of severe wild-type varicella-zoster virus infections in children and adults.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/vaccines9010023","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,6]],"date-time":"2021-01-06T20:45:42Z","timestamp":1609965942000},"page":"23","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["Corticosteroids Contribute to Serious Adverse Events Following Live Attenuated Varicella Vaccination and Live Attenuated Zoster Vaccination"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"given":"Nathan B.","family":"Price","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6884-6668","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Charles","family":"Grose","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases\/Virology Laboratory, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,1,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"742","DOI":"10.1097\/00006454-199509000-00003","article-title":"Varicella vaccine: Its past, present and future","volume":"14","author":"Gershon","year":"1995","journal-title":"Pediatr Infect. 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