Abstract
Live attenuated varicella vaccine was developed in Japan in the early 1970 s as a means to prevent varicella primary infection with varicella-zoster virus (VZV) in healthy and immunocompromised individuals (Takahashi et al., 1974). Takahashi had attenuated the virus by passage in various cell cultures using different propagation temperatures and produced a candidate vaccine virus that proved to be both safe and immunogenic. Initially, there was great controversy as to whether it was likely to be safe to develop a vaccine that had the potential to become latent after immunization and that might even be oncogenic (Brunell, 1977, 1978). It was also questioned as to whether varicella was a serious enough disease to be worth preventing.
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Gershon, A.A. (2010). Vaccination Against Varicella: What's the Point?. In: Finn, A., Curtis, N., Pollard, A. (eds) Hot Topics in Infection and Immunity in Children VI. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 659. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0981-7_7
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