re: I now know three people under 45 that have shingles

quote:

---

Some researchers speculate that an increase in shingles may be attributed to the lack of exposure to wild varicella-zoster virus. As their immunity wanes over time, adults aren't given a natural "boost" by being exposed to children who have chickenpox.

---

This. In the past, people got chickenpox as a child. They were exposed to the virus probably yearly, because future generations of children got chickenpox. These exposures kept their immunity up, and only elderly or immunocompromised adults got shingles.

Now, all the kids are vaccinated against chickenpox. Adults who had chickenpox as a child don’t have those yearly immunity boosters, so they get shingles at younger ages. This phenomenon may end as those adults (gen x/older millennials and older) die off. Or, we may start getting pushed to get the shingles vaccine at an earlier age. Vaccine begets the need for more vaccine.

It will be interesting to see if people who were vaccinated against chickenpox develop shingles later in life. “They” think they probably won’t, thus eliminating the need for a shingles vaccine. But they don’t really know.

I would still recommend getting your kids the chickenpox vaccine. As stated above, getting chickenpox for the first time as an adult is very dangerous. Also, back in the day, a small percentage of kids did actually die from chickenpox.