Varicella (Chickenpox) | Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Charlotte Moser, Co-Director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, talks about varicella, also known as chickenpox, and the vaccine that protects against it. She addresses common questions and discusses the relative risks and benefits of the disease and vaccine.   

Find out:

• How many children died from chickenpox every week before the vaccine became available
• Three ways the virus can spread
• What chickenpox “crops” are and how they affect the look of the rash
• Why so-called “flesh-eating” bacteria can be a problem when people have chickenpox
• Two lesser-known complications that can occur weeks or months after recovery
• Why the vaccine strain is called the Oka strain
• Who shouldn’t get the chickenpox vaccine
• Whether the chickenpox vaccine can cause shingles later in life
• Whether the vaccine delays disease until adulthood when people are more susceptible to severe disease
• Some theories about why we call it “chickenpox”

To learn more about chickenpox and the vaccine, please visit https://bit.ly/chickenpox-vaccine.

Questions? Submit the VEC Vaccine Notes form.

For other vaccines, diseases or general questions about vaccines, check out https://vaccine.chop.edu.