Testing should be offered to women without a history of chickenpox

Editor-Daniel S Seidman and colleagues' editorial on giving varicella vaccine to non-immune women to prevent infection during pregnancy addresses an area of growing clinical concern.1 The potential consequences to the fetus resulting from chickenpox in pregnancy are serious.2 The problem stems from a rise in the incidence of primary chickenpox in adults, probably as a result of increased personal living standards delaying exposure to the virus.3 In Northern Ireland over the period 1 January 1995 to 31 August 1996 we established the laboratory diagnosis of acute chickenpox in 28 patients (average age 23 years). The clinical presentation was atypical in several patients, including a 35 year old woman with secondary chickenpox, in whom varicella zoster virus was recovered from an isolated abdominal …