Shingles, known medically as herpes zoster, is an infection that causes a painful rash. It is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox (varicella). Once someone has recovered from chickenpox, the virus remains dormant in the body and then can reactivate later in life and present as shingles because of decreased immunity – either …
The NHS childhood vaccination schedule has recently been updated to help give children even better protection against diseases. Changes include protecting children against some diseases earlier and adding vaccines that protect against more diseases.
This blog post was last checked and updated January 2026. Due to the introduction of a varicella (chickenpox) vaccination programme, the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) vaccine replaced the MMR vaccine in the routine childhood programme from the 1 …
