The Medical letter on drugs and therapeutics
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A live attenuated varicella-zoster vaccine (Zostavax--Merck) has been approved by the FDA for prevention of herpes zoster (HZ; zoster; shingles) in persons > or = 60 years old. Each dose of Zostavax contains about 14 times as much varicella-zoster virus (VZV) as Varivax, which has been used in the US since 1995 to vaccinate against varicella (chicken pox).