Everything you MUST know about your child and the new chickenpox jab
And how it could have transformed the life of ten-year-old Lauren . . .
LESLEY SWIFT was not overly concerned when a tell-tale red spot appeared on the back of her daughter leg three years ago. ‘Chickenpox was doing the rounds at school, so I knew immediately what it was — all the mums were talking about it,’ recalls Lesley, 28.
Over the next few days, more tiny red spots appeared behind Lauren’s ears and under her armpits, then spread to inside her mouth and the soles of her feet.
And so, once her GP had confirmed the diagnosis, Lesley duly put her daughter — then aged seven — on the sofa, covered her in emollient cream to calm the itching and waited for the illness to pass.
‘I joked that she was being waited on like Lady Muck, but I wasn’t worried. I thought it was a case of sitting it out,’ says the single mother-of-three from St Helens, Merseyside. ‘Like most people, I thought of chickenpox as a harmless childhood illness that everyone got.’
It was to prove anything but harmless. In Lauren’s case it led to a life-threatening complication with a lasting impact.
Eight days after her spots appeared, Lauren complained of severe headaches. Lesley called the doctor’s surgery, but the receptionist said she ‘didn’t need a second appointment for chickenpox’.
The weekend passed and, by Monday, Lauren was unresponsive and groggy — and her mother was frantic.
‘She could barely walk downstairs without me helping,’ says Lesley. Her head was lolling. I knew something was terribly wrong, so called the NHS helpline 111.’
Although this isn’t an emergency service, when the operator heard Lauren’s symptoms, she immediately sent an ambulance. By the time it arrived, Lauren was slipping in and out of consciousness with a temperature of 41c.
WHATfollowed for Lesley was a terrifying blur. In hospital, Lauren’s heart stopped during the night and she had to be put into an induced coma and moved to a children’s hospital for urgent specialist care.
There the consultant sat Lesley down and explained that her daughter had contracted a form of bacterial meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the brain.
Chickenpox is a common, contagious childhood illness. It is caused by the varicella zoster virus and characterised by high temperature and a rash of itchy spots that turn into blisters filled with fluid.
Although the NHS describes it as a ‘usually mild’ condition that clears up in a week or so, in some cases it can be serious, explains Professor Adam Finn, a consultant in paediatric infectious diseases at Bristol Royal Hospital. ‘ Most children recover, but a minority get seriously ill as a result of complications,’ he says.
‘These include bacterial infections such as Group A streptococcus, a bacterium that lives on the skin but can get underneath because the chickenpox rash in effect punches holes in the skin.’
In rare cases these infections can lead to serious conditions such as meningitis. Other potential complications include stroke.
Occasionally the chickenpox virus can spread to the lungs and cause pneumonia.
Complications arise in one chickenpox case in 100, and 6,700 children are admitted to hospitals yearly as a result.
Although deaths are uncommon, ‘the trouble is we don’t know who those children will be’, says Professor Finn. Lauren’s meningitis was a type linked to listeria, a bacterium that causes food poisoning. Doctors believe she ate something with the bug, and because chickenpox had suppressed her immunity, it led to meningitis.
A rash from meningitis might even have been hidden among her chickenpox marks.
‘The meningitis rash starts as tiny red pinpricks that can spread fast and develop into purple bruising — it doesn’t fade under pressure,’ says Claire Donovan, from the charity Meningitis Now.
‘It can be tested by pressing the side of a clear glass firmly against the rash — most will fade. But not everyone will get this rash. In those who do, it can be a late sign.’
Early signs of meningitis, Claire explains, can be similar to flu and include fever, headache and muscle pain.
Until she contracted chickenpox, Lauren was fit, healthy and loved dancing to her favourite band, One Direction. Less than two weeks later, her life hung in the balance. The consultant told Lesley there was just a 10 per cent chance Lauren would survive. She was rushed for surgery to drain fluid from her brain.
‘I was asked to sign forms to accept she might die on the operating table,’ says Lesley.
‘I remember asking: “Will she die?” They just replied that they had to do this to save her life.’
After her operation, Lauren was kept in a coma for another three weeks, with drains inserted into her brain to reduce swelling.
When she eventually regained consciousness, Lesley was shocked to find her daughter did not recognise her. She could not talk and had forgotten how to feed herself, as a result of minor brain damage from the meningitis.
‘I had to hold up boards with pictures of things such as a drink or a sandwich and Lauren would point to what she wanted. It was heartbreaking. The consultant told me that if I hadn’t called 111 when I did, Lauren wouldn’t even be here.’
Lauren spent six months in hospital and it was two years before she stopped using a wheelchair. Now aged ten, she is back to running in the garden with her sister, Leah, seven, and brother, Blake, four. But she is permanently deaf in one ear and has ongoing memory trouble.
‘I’ve chosen to tell Lauren’s story because I have learned the hard way that chickenpox is not always a normal childhood illness,’ says Lesley, who says all children should be offered a chickenpox vaccine.
THISis given routinely in the U.S., Germany and Australia, but on the NHS it is only available to children with weakened immunity (for example, cancer patients or their immediate family).
One argument against the vaccine is once you have chickenpox, the virus lies dormant in the nerves and can come back later in life as shingles — an infection of a nerve and the surrounding skin, which causes a painful rash and, in some people, permanent nerve pain.
It’s thought that when adults who have had chickenpox are exposed to it again, immunity against shingles is given a boost.
‘If we vaccinate everyone, we could increase cases of potentially more harmful shingles, which, particularly among older people, could be more costly to the health service,’ says Professor Finn.
However, he says that given the evidence from other countries that have introduced the chickenpox vaccine to children, we should consider offering it in the UK.
‘When the U.S. introduced the chickenpox vaccine in 1996 they got good control of chickenpox, and studies don’t suggest there has been a shingles problem.’
Lesley agrees: ‘No child should go through what Lauren went through. She’s lucky to be alive.’