You must get shingles vaccine, if you are 60-year-old and above, living in United States. Well, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that on Thursday, May 15.

The CDC recommended that people of 60 and older must get vaccinated against shingles because the skin infection is widely prevalent in the older people in the United States. According to the CDC report, more than 95 percent of Americans are infected by chickenpox, and as many as one in three infected people develop shingles later in life.

Caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, Shingles is a blistering skin rash most common in older people. Its symptoms include mild-to-severe tingling, itching, burning, or shooting pain. It usually ends after four weeks, but one in five victims develop long-term nerve pain. Other complications can include scarring and loss of vision or hearing.

Shingles is caused by the varicella zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox. The virus remains dormant in body even after recovering from chickenpox.

William Schaffner, chair of the department of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, says, "The virus is actually in the nerves, and that's what causes the accompanying pain.”

Shingles isn't normally contagious, but the virus can pass to someone who has never had chickenpox. According to Schaffner, Shingles is sometimes disfiguring, and sometimes it's a threat to your eyesight if the shingles illness occurs on the face. It usually starts with a rash or blisters on the skin, typically on one side of the body. Rarely, shingles can lead to blindness, pneumonia, hearing problems, brain inflammation, or even death.

Zostavax shot is effective against Shingles. Merck, the maker of the Zostavax vaccine, says it has distributed just 2.5 million doses of the shot so far. The single-dose vaccine, made by Merck, can cost more than $150. According to Merck, about 43 million people are eligible to get vaccinated in United States.