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Grant support

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias. Spain, Grant PS09/02331. RGP's work has been partially funded by Fundacion Caja Madrid. Movilidad de Profesores de las Universidades Publicas de Madrid, convocatoria 2012.

Analysis of institutional authors

Gil-Prieto, RCorresponding AuthorGarcia-Garcia, LAuthorMarin-Garcia, PAuthorGil-De-Miguel, AAuthor

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Article

Different vaccination strategies in Spain and its impact on severe varicella and zoster

Publicated to:Vaccine. 32 (2): 277-283 - 2014-01-03 32(2), DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.11.008

Authors: Gil-Prieto, Ruth; Walter, Stefan; Gonzalez-Escalada, Alba; Garcia-Garcia, Laura; Marin-Garcia, Patricia; Gil-de-Miguel, Angel

Affiliations

Harvard Univ, Sch Med, Dept Populat Med, Boston, MA USA - Author
Harvard Univ, Sch Publ Hlth, Dept Social & Behav Sci, Boston, MA 02115 USA - Author
Rey Juan Carlos Univ, Dept Prevent Med & Publ Hlth & Med Immunol & Micr, Madrid 28922, Spain - Author

Abstract

Varicella vaccines available in Spain were marketed in 1998 and 2003 for non-routine use. Since 2006 some regions decided to include varicella vaccination in their regional routine vaccination programmes at 15-18 months of age. Other regions chose the strategy of vaccinating susceptible adolescents. This study shows the trends in severe varicella zoster virus infections through the analysis of the hospital discharges related to varicella and herpes zoster in the general population from 2005 to 2010 in Spain. A total of 11,125 hospital discharges related to varicella and 27,736 related to herpes zoster were reported during the study period. The overall annual rate of hospitalization was 4.14 cases per 100,000 for varicella and 10.33 cases per 100,000 for herpes zoster. In children younger than 5 years old varicella hospitalization rate significantly decreased from 46.77 in 2005 to 26.55 per 100,000 in 2010. The hospitalization rate related to herpes zoster slightly increased from 9.71 in 2005 to 10.90 per 100,000 in 2010. This increase was mainly due to the significant increase occurring in the >84 age group, from 69.55 to 97.68 per 100,000. When gathering for regions taking into account varicella vaccine strategy, varicella related hospitalizations decreased significantly more in those regions which included the vaccine at 15-18 months of age as a routine vaccine comparing with those vaccinating at 10-14 years old. No significant differences were found in herpes zoster hospitalization rates regarding the varicella vaccination strategy among regions. Severe varicella infections decreased after implementation of varicella vaccination in Spain. This decrease was significantly higher in regions including the vaccine at 15-18 months of age compared with those vaccinating susceptible adolescents. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords

AdolescentAdultAgedAged, 80 and overArticleBurdenChickenpoxChickenpox vaccineChildChild, preschoolComplicationsDisease severityEpidemiologyGeographic distributionHealth programHerpes zosterHerpes-zosterHigh risk populationHospital dischargeHospitalizationHospitalizationsHospitalized childrenHumanHumansImmunityImmunization programsImmunization scheduleIncidenceInfantInfectionMajor clinical studyMiddle agedPostherpetic neuralgiaPriority journalRetrospective studiesRetrospective studySpainTrend studyUnited-statesVaccinationVaccineVaricellaVaricella zoster vaccineYoung adult

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Vaccine due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2014, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Veterinary (Miscellaneous). Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 7.85, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Jun 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-06-23, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 28
  • Scopus: 36
  • Europe PMC: 24
  • OpenCitations: 38

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-06-23:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 38.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 38 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 20.1.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 23 (Altmetric).

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United States of America.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (Gil Prieto, Ruth) and Last Author (Gil de Miguel, Ángel).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been Gil Prieto, Ruth.