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RecruitingNCT05580458Updated Nov 9, 2026

Safety and Immunogenicity of Recombinant Varicella Zoster Virus Vaccine in People With HIV Who Have a CD4 Count Less Than 300 or Greater Than or Equal to 300 and a Healthy Control Population

A Phase 1/2 interventional study of Shingrix in Herpes Zoster, sponsored by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-11-09.

Sponsored by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) · Phase 1/2, Interventional, and Prevention

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Mar 2023; still recruiting 3 years 7 months later.
Phase
Phase 1/2
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
225
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Background:

Shingles is a painful, blistering rash caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. Shingrix is a vaccine approved to prevent shingles in healthy adults over age 50 and in immunocompromised adults over age 18. Researchers want to learn more about how people with HIV respond to Shingrix.

Objective:

To learn how Shingrix affects the immune response in people with HIV.

Eligibility:

People aged 18 years and older with HIV. Healthy people aged 50 years or older are also needed.

Design:

Participants will have at least 4 clinic visits in 1 year.

Participants will be screened. They will have a physical exam with blood and urine tests.

At their first visit, participants will receive Shingrix as a shot in the upper arm. They will have a rectal swab; a cotton swab will be inserted into the rectum and rotated gently to collect bacteria.

Participants will receive a second shot of Shingrix 2 months after the first one. They will visit the clinic again 3 and 12 months after the first shot.

Participants will receive a 28-day memory tool. They will write down their symptoms between clinic visits. They will have up to 4 phone calls to talk about side effects of the shot.

Participants may undergo apheresis: They will lie still while blood is drawn from a needle in one arm. The blood will pass through a machine that separates out the white blood cells. The remaining blood will be given back through a second needle in their other arm.

Read the detailed description

Study Description:

This phase 1/2 open-label study will evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the Shingrix recombinant varicella zoster virus vaccine (RZV) in people with HIV (PWH) aged 18 years and older and healthy volunteers aged 50 years and older. Shingrix will be administered by intramuscular (IM) injection during visits at months 0 and 2, and blood will be collected prior to each dose and at follow-up visits at months 3 and 12. Study evaluations will include assessment of adverse events (AEs) by physical examination, safety laboratory evaluations, and participant memory tool, and assessment of response in research immunogenicity assays on blood.

Objectives:

Primary Objective:

-Assess vaccine immunogenicity after administration of a full Shingrix series schedule in PWH based upon CD4 count \< 300 and >= 300.

Secondary Objectives:

  • Assess vaccine immunogenicity after administration of a full Shingrix series schedule in PWH by age (\< 50 and >= 50 years).
  • Compare vaccine immunogenicity in PWH versus healthy volunteers.
  • Evaluate grade 3 and 4 safety responses in PWH, based upon CD4 count (\< 300 and >= 300), and healthy volunteers.
  • Evaluate grade 3 and 4 safety responses in PWH, based upon age (\< 50 and >= 50), and healthy volunteers.

Tertiary/Exploratory Objectives:

  • Compare immune cell responses in PWH, based upon CD4 count (\< 300 and >= 300), and healthy volunteers.
  • Compare immune cell responses in PWH, based upon age (\< 50 and >= 50 years), and healthy volunteers.
  • Assess vaccine immunogenicity by varicella zoster serostatus.
  • Assess zoster reactivation.
  • Correlate the microbiome profile with vaccine responses.

Endpoints:

Primary Endpoint:

-Fold change of anti-glycoprotein gE (anti-gE) antibody concentrations evaluated regularly through the end of study (months 3 and 12) by CD4 count (\< 300 and >= 300) run by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

Secondary Endpoints:

  • Fold change of anti-gE antibody concentrations evaluated regularly through the end of study (months 3 and 12) by age (\< 50 and >= 50) run by GSK.
  • Fold change of anti-gE antibody concentrations evaluated regularly through the end of study (months 3 and 12) in PWH and healthy volunteers run by GSK.
  • Grade 3 and/or Grade 4 Shingrix AEs (solicited and unsolicited local and systemic).

Tertiary/Exploratory Endpoints:

  • T-cell assays and phenotypes evaluated regularly through end of study.
  • Varicella zoster serostatus as determined by IgG and IgM antibody levels.
  • Number of episodes and severity of zoster reactivation (including extradermatomal complications such as neurologic or ophthalmologic complications and adverse sequelae such as post herpetic neuralgia).
  • Baseline microbiome profile.
02

Conditions studied

  • Herpes Zoster

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Keywords

  • HERPES ZOSTER
  • Shingrix Vaccine
03

In context

Herpes Zoster

299 studies on the registry are indexed under Herpes Zoster; 55 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 225 is above the median of 160 across 247 interventional studies indexed under Herpes Zoster.

Browse Herpes Zoster studies →

Lead sponsor

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is the lead sponsor of 2,446 studies on the registry; 179 are open to participants now.

Of its 405 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 302 (75%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

General Inclusion Criteria:

Individuals must meet all of the following criteria to be eligible for study participation:

  • Able to provide .
  • Participants of must agree to use at least 1 acceptable method of when engaging in sexual activities that can result in pregnancy, beginning at screening through month 3. Acceptable methods of contraception include the following:

    • Hormonal contraception.
    • Male or female condom.
    • Diaphragm or cervical cap with a spermicide.
    • Intrauterine device.
  • Has a primary care provider.

Additional Inclusion Criteria for People with :

  • PWH must also meet all the following criteria to be eligible for study participation:
  • >= 18 years of age.
  • Seropositive for HIV-1 (documented or confirmed at screening).
  • Documented viral load \< 100 copies/mL within 90 days of screening and documented viral suppression defined as viral load consistently \<100 copies/mL with at least one documented viral load \< 40 copies/mL within 12 months prior to screening.
  • Currently on a stable antiretroviral regimen (minimum of 6 months of a stable ART regimen; changes for side effects, drug interaction, or convenience allowed), or is an elite controller (maintains undetectable viral loads in the absence of any treatment for a period of 12 months prior to screening visit).
  • No active/uncontrolled opportunistic infections (patients on chronic maintenance therapy would be considered as controlled).

Additional Inclusion Criteria for Healthy Volunteers:

Healthy volunteers must also meet all of the following criteria to be eligible for study participation:

  • >= 50 years of age.
  • No uncontrolled chronic medical issues that per the discretion of the PI or designee would compromise the safety of the research participant.
  • No underlying immunodeficiencies (including negative HIV test at screening).

Exclusion criteria

EXCLUSION CRITERIA:

Individuals meeting any of the following criteria will be excluded from study participation:

  • Previous receipt of Shingrix vaccine at any time.
  • Receipt of Zostavax within the past 12 months.
  • History of severe allergic reaction to any component of Shingrix.
  • Diagnosed varicella or herpes zoster episode within the past 1 month. Subject will be eligible for SHINGRIX vaccine once symptoms of herpes zoster episode have resolved.
  • (other than for the PWH cohort) within the past 6 months (eg, due to a other than skin cancer).
  • Current moderate or severe acute illness (ie, febrile illness, seizure, myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accident, pulmonary embolism) that in the opinion of the principal investigator, would make the subject unsuitable for the study.
  • Pregnancy or breastfeeding.
  • Receipt of an agent, investigational vaccine, or licensed within 30 days prior to screening.
  • Planned receipt of any vaccine (investigational or ACIP-recommended) between months 0 and 2 except for the tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis vaccine [TDaP], Pneumovax, inactivated influenza vaccines, and COVID-19 vaccine which may be given at least 8 days before and/or at least 14 days after each study agent injection (at month 0/month 2).
  • Administration of immunoglobulins or any blood products within 90 days preceding the first dose of vaccine or planned administration during the study period.
  • Chronic administration (>= 15 consecutive days) of immunosuppressive or other immune-modifying drugs within 6 months before screening. (Prednisone \< 20 mg/day or equivalent, nasal spray or inhaler, and topical steroids are not exclusionary).
  • Uncontrolled psychiatric disease per physician evaluation, current substance use, or inappropriate conduct unsuitable for a research study.
  • Any condition that could compromise, in the investigator's opinion, the participant's safety or the study outcomes.

Participants will be selected in an equitable manner from the available pool of potentially eligible individuals, without regard to factors such as sex, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc, except for age.

Medical record review may be used for determining eligibility. If a clinical laboratory evaluation is available for review at the screening timepoint, but was obtained prior to protocol consent, the laboratory test does not have to be repeated for the purposes of confirming eligibility under the protocol.

Terms in these criteria, in plain language(9)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

Childbearing potential

Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).

Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.

Contraception

Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.

Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.

HIV

The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.

Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.

Immunosuppression

A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.

Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.

Cancer (malignancy)

Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.

Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.

Investigational drug or device

A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.

It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.

Live vaccines

Vaccines made with a weakened form of the germ, such as measles–mumps–rubella (MMR), chickenpox and yellow fever. They can be risky when the immune system is weakened. Flu injections are not live; the nasal flu spray is.

Corticosteroids (steroids)

Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.

Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 1 / Phase 2
Primary purpose
Prevention
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
225 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Shingrix

    Shingrix will be administered in two 0.5-mL doses approximately 2 months apart.

    Biological: Shingrix

Interventions

  • BiologicalShingrix

    Shingrix is a recombinant, adjuvanted vaccine for prevention of herpes zoster. It is supplied as lyophilized recombinant VZV surface gE antigen for reconstitution with AS01B adjuvant suspension. Each Shingrix dose will be 0.5mL and administered by IM injection in the deltoid region of the upper arm.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Fold change of anti-gE antibody concentrations evaluated regularly through the end of study (months 3 and 12) by CD4 count (< 300 and >= 300)

    Assess vaccine immunogenicity after administration of a full Shingrix series schedule in PWH based upon CD4 count \< 300 and \>= 300.

    Time frame: Months 3 and 12

Secondary outcomes

  1. Fold change of anti-gE antibody concentrations evaluated regularly through the end of study in PWH and healthy volunteers

    Compare vaccine immunogenicity in PWH versus healthy volunteers.

    Time frame: Months 3 and 12

  2. Grade 3 and/or Grade 4 Shingrix ARs (solicited and unsolicited local and systemic).

    Evaluate grade 3 and 4 safety responses in PWH, based upon age (\< 50 and \>= 50), and healthy volunteers.

    Time frame: Through the end of the study

  3. Grade 3 and/or Grade 4 Shingrix ARs (solicited and unsolicited local and systemic).

    Evaluate grade 3 and 4 safety responses in PWH, based upon CD4 count (\< 300 and \>= 300), and healthy volunteers.

    Time frame: Through the end of the study

  4. Fold change of anti-gE antibody concentrations evaluated regularly through the end of study by age (< 50 and >= 50)

    Assess vaccine immunogenicity after administration of a full Shingrix series schedule in PWH by age (\< 50 and \>= 50 years).

    Time frame: Months 3 and 12

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
  • National Institutes of Health Clinical Center
    Bethesda, Maryland 20892, United States
    Recruiting
    • For more information at the NIH Clinical Center contact Office of Patient Recruitment (OPR) · Contactccopr@nih.gov · 800-411-1222
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Lal H, Cunningham AL, Godeaux O, Chlibek R, Diez-Domingo J, Hwang SJ, Levin MJ, McElhaney JE, Poder A, Puig-Barbera J, Vesikari T, Watanabe D, Weckx L, Zahaf T, Heineman TC; ZOE-50 Study Group. Efficacy of an adjuvanted herpes zoster subunit vaccine in older adults. N Engl J Med. 2015 May 28;372(22):2087-96. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1501184. Epub 2015 Apr 28. PubMed 25916341 ↗
  • Berkowitz EM, Moyle G, Stellbrink HJ, Schurmann D, Kegg S, Stoll M, El Idrissi M, Oostvogels L, Heineman TC; Zoster-015 HZ/su Study Group. Safety and immunogenicity of an adjuvanted herpes zoster subunit candidate vaccine in HIV-infected adults: a phase 1/2a randomized, placebo-controlled study. J Infect Dis. 2015 Apr 15;211(8):1279-87. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiu606. Epub 2014 Nov 3. PubMed 25371534 ↗
09

Updates

7 registry updates since Sep 25, 2026
Minor edits
Nothing that changes what the study is or who can join. Edited: description
7 updates, last Nov 9, 2026
Show all 7 updates
  1. Nov 9, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  2. Nov 5, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  3. Nov 3, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  4. Oct 29, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  5. Oct 8, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  6. Oct 2, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  7. Sep 28, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description

From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT05580458
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Oct 14, 2022
Start date
Mar 13, 2023
Primary completion
Feb 1, 2027 (estimated)
Completion
Oct 1, 2027 (estimated)
Last update
Nov 9, 2026

Study contacts

Maura M Manion, M.D.
Contact
maura.manion@nih.gov
(301) 312-2103
Maura M Manion, M.D.
principal investigator · National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
Yes
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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