Children's health specialists want universal chickenpox vaccine added to the list of state-funded immunisations, after their study showed that admission to hospital with the viral illness is not uncommon.
Chickenpox vaccination is state-funded in Australia, but in New Zealand the Government pays for it only for children and adults at high risk of certain diseases due to other medical conditions.
Most New Zealand children catch chickenpox, also called varicella, and have mild symptoms. It causes itchy blisters all over the body which children can't keep from scratching. The scratching can lead to bacterial skin infections and this is the leading reason for chickenpox cases landing in hospital.
Health authorities warn against the parental practice of holding "chickenpox parties" to deliberately infect their children, because of the risk of severe complications and even death.
"The perception of varicella always being a benign childhood disease needs to be redressed, with almost 10 per cent of cases hospitalised with varicella requiring intensive care unit admission in this study," say the researchers, mainly paediatricians from Starship children's hospital and the Auckland and Otago Universities.