Varicella-zoster IgG among nurse students at the start of clinical practice

Dear Sir,

The problem of the varicella-zoster virus is common in the tropics. It becomes an important consideration for medical workers who have a higher risk of infection than the general population. According to the previous report by Yasri et al. and Wiwanitkit et al., 0.11% of medical students get infected during clinical practice annually.­ ^[1] The interesting issue is the use of preclinical practice vaccination against the varicella-zoster virus. In fact, there are several concerns towards the implementation of such vaccination. The seroepidemiology is an important factor to be studied. Here, the authors report the observation on the varicella-zoster IgG among nurse students at the start of clinical practice. Overall, 85 nurse students from a nurse college were tested for varicella-zoster IgG, as routine requirements before having clinical practice (those without immunity were to be given free vaccine). Based on the derived data, all students have IgG seropositivity with an average level equal to 1.4 ± 0.1 AI. This is significantly high comparing to a recent report from Iran, which is not a tropical country. ^[2] This finding can support that, in an endemic area, as mentioned in the previous note that there might not be appropriate machinery to give mass vaccination to the students before clinical practice. ^[1]

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DOI: 10.4103/1755-6783.177382