Safety and Immunogenicity of Early Vaccination with Two Doses of Tetravalent Measles-Mumps-Rubella-Varicella (MMRV) Vaccine in Healthy Children from 9 Months of Age

Abstract

Early vaccination with two doses of this experimental MMRV vaccine at 9 and 12 months of age was well-tolerated and at least as immunogenic as two doses of separate licensed MMR and varicella vaccines.

Safety, immunogenicity and immediate pain of intramuscular versus subcutaneous administration of a measles–mumps–rubella–varicella vaccine to children aged 11–21 months

“…Seroconversion rate for measles were 99.3% in the IM group (one out of 138 subject seronegative) and 98.6% in the SC group (two out of 140 subjects seronegative). The high seroconversion rates (approaching or equal to 100% after two doses) and GMTs for all components support similarly high rates observed in previous studies using this MMRV vaccine [11,25,30,32,33,37].…”

“…Priorix-Tetra™ (GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals) is a combined MMRV vaccine with an immunogenicity profile similar to separately administered MMR + V vaccines and a high degree of antibody persistence [11,18,25,30,32,37]. Live attenuated vaccines such as the MMRV vaccine are usually given subcutaneously, whereas most paediatric vaccines are inactivated vaccines and typically given intramuscularly.…”

Inverse correlation between varicella severity and level of anti-Varicella Zoster Virus maternal antibodies in infants below one year of age

“…Indeed, data show that current varicella vaccine is immunogenic and well tolerated as early as 9 months of age. [23][24][25] For the protection of infants younger than 9 months of age, the vaccination should be considered for unprotected household members or any person in close contact with a pregnant woman or a very young baby. Additionally postpartum catch-up vaccination of susceptible persons is another the large number of subjects in each group, it is thus reasonable to believe that our results provide a true idea of the inverse correlation that may exist between passive immunity and severity of varicella complications in infants below one year of age.…”

Complete DNA Sequences of Two Oka Strain Varicella-Zoster Virus Genomes

“…Combined vaccine products containing the VZV Oka strain have been developed as well. For instance, GSK Biologicals and Merck & Co., Inc., developed combined tetravalent measlesmumps-rubella-varicella vaccines (Priorix-Tetra and ProQuad, respectively), providing the benefits of measles-mumps-rubella and varicella vaccination in a single injection (19,30,35,48,71,72,79).…”