About the Authors

Raina MacIntyre

r.macintyre@unsw.edu.au

Affiliations School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, National Centre for Immunisation Research (NCIRS), Sydney, Australia

Alicia Stein

Affiliation bioCSL, Melbourne, Australia

Christopher Harrison

Affiliation Family Medicine Research Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Helena Britt

Affiliation Family Medicine Research Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Abela Mahimbo

Affiliation School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Anthony Cunningham

Affiliation Westmead Millennium Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Competing Interests

Raina MacIntyre has received funding for investigator-driven research from Merck, GSK and bioCSL. Alicia Stein is an employee of bioCSL, which distributes the zoster vaccine (ZOSTAVAX) in Australia, and holds shares in the parent company, CSL Limited. Anthony Cunningham consults for and has received honoraria from GSK, Merck and bioCSL in relation to Herpes zoster vaccines. Dr Helena Britt is Chief Investigator of, and Christopher Harrison is a senior analyst working on the BEACH program, data from which was used in this paper. The program is funded by an Australian Government Competitive Grant, and by multiple commercial organizations who have formal ‘arms length’ Research Agreements with the University of Sydney for this project. One of these organizations is bioCSL. Abela Mahimbo: None to declare. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RM AS. Analyzed the data: AS CH. Wrote the paper: RM AS CH HB AM AC. Literature review: AM.