Two doses of Shingrix vaccine protect against herpes zoster in adults aged 50 years or older for up to 10 years, according to an open-label, follow-up study from two phase III randomised trials.

The follow-up study enrolled 7,413 people aged 50 years and older. Overall efficacy from a month after immunisation to a mean of 9.6 years after vaccination was 89.0 per cent.

Efficacy fell from 97.7 per cent in the first year after vaccination to 72.7 and 73.2 per cent in years nine and 10 respectively but remained statistically significantly better than historical and placebo controls.

Average levels of protective antibodies remained more than five-fold higher than the pre-vaccination levels between five and 10 years after vaccination.   

No new safety concerns emerged and no deaths or other serious adverse events occurred that the investigators considered to be related to the vaccine. (Open Forum Infectious Diseases 2022;9:ofac485)