The Turkish Journal of Pediatrics 2011 , Vol 53 , Num 6
Chickenpox Complications, Incidence and Financial Burden in Previously Healthy Children and Those with an Underlying Disease in Ankara in the Pre-Vaccination Period
Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Ankara University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey Özdemir H, Çandır MO, Karbuz A, Belet N, Tapısız A, Çiftçi E, İnce E. Chickenpox complications, incidence and financial burden in previously healthy children and those with an underlying disease in Ankara in the pre-vaccination period. Turk J Pediatr 2011; 53: 614-625.

The aim of this study was to determine the complications, financial burden and mortality caused by chickenpox using the data of Ankara, Turkey in the pre-vaccination period. The study was conducted as a retrospective sectional study. Of the 65 patients admitted to our hospital, 34 (52.3%) had been previously healthy, 10 (15.4%) had previous chronic disease and 21 (32.3%) were immunocompromised. The most common complications of chickenpox in those patient groups were skin and soft tissue infections (41.2%), hematological complications (50%) and gastrointestinal complications (38.1%), respectively. We found 10.6/100,000 and 8.7/100,000 rates of hospitalization due to chickenpox in Ankara for all children and for previously healthy children, respectively. The chickenpox-related mortality rate for the 0-17 age group was 3.03/1,000,000 in Ankara. In conclusion, we feel that a national vaccination program for chickenpox will lead to a significant decrease in the overall cost to our country. Keywords : chickenpox, children, complication, financial burden, varicella-zoster virus.

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