Speaker: Andrea Del Mastro
Director of Unit of Immunology at AORN A. Cardarelli, Internal Medicine Division 1, AORN A.
Title : Cease fire – a vaccine-based strategy against the increasing incidence of Herpes Zoster among fragile people
Biography
Andrea Del Mastro is a Medical Doctor specialized in Allergy and Clinical Immunology and currently serves as Director of the Immunology Unit at AORN A. Cardarelli Hospital in Naples, Italy. His clinical and research activities focus on immunodeficiencies, autoinflammatory diseases, and hypersensitivity disorders. He has collaborated with the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and international institutions, including Temple University in Philadelphia, contributing to studies on COVID-19 immunity, celiac disease, and autoimmune mechanisms. He is the author of peer-reviewed scientific publications and a member of leading European immunology and immunodeficiency societies.
Abstract
Varicella Zoster Virus is a DNA virus causative of Herpes Zoster, a debilitating disease whose main feature is a difficult to treat pain caused by the involvement of sensory fibers. While self-limiting in immunocompetent subjects, it may cause severe or even fatal disease in immunocompromised and elderly patients, two categories whose dimensions are increasing in the last decades due to the availability of new immunological treatments for several diseases, and to the ageing of the population.
RZV vaccine is a recombinant vaccine based on glycoprotein E, with adjuvant system AS01B, effective in reducing the number and the severity of recurrence of Herpes Zoster, with high safety profile in contrast with its predecessor, which contained a live attenuated virus and was unfitted for the population target. RZV vaccine represents an example of the evolving strategies aimed at protecting immunocompromised and fragile, elderly patients.