A 10-year-old girl came to our immunization clinic, and the nurse noted crusted lesions on her arms and legs. The parent said the child had had chickenpox a week earlier. The girl was not ill, so we vaccinated her. But now I wonder if her recent case of chickenpox might interfere with her immune response to vaccines.

A previous history of chickenpox disease, even recent disease, is not known to interfere with the immune response to different vaccines. To review the true contraindications and precautions to vaccination, consult Immunize.org’s “Guide to Contraindications and Precautions to Commonly Used Vaccines” at www.immunize.org/catg.d/p3072a.pdf.

Another helpful resource is CDC’s “General Best Practice Guidelines for Immunization”. It contains a useful table titled “Conditions incorrectly perceived as contraindications or precautions to vaccination (i.e., vaccines may be given under these conditions)”. The table is available at www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/acip-recs/general-recs/contraindications.html, Table 4-2.