You can now start booking free shingles vaccines, if you’re 65 and older.

The first appointments will be May 28, according to a news release from the provincial government.

Vaccines cost $200 a dose, and patients will need two doses. Once you get the first, you wait between two and six months to get the next one, says Dr. Robert Strang, Chief Medical Officer of Health for Nova Scotia.

To book an appointment, you can call your primary health-care provider or visit this website.

Bill VanGorder, advocacy and education officer with the Canadian Association of Retired People (CARP), says free shingles vaccines will make it more accessible for a lot of seniors.

“The cost has been a huge issue, and we’ve been talking about this for 10 years, so this is really good news today,” said VanGorder.

“When we surveyed our CARP members a few months ago, the vast majority wanted to have the shingles vaccine right away.”

He says he also already got his own vaccine because he has seen the adverse affects of shingles.

Risk of the affects of shingles starts to increase at 50, but they say things like nerve pain, hospitalization really increase at 65, says Dr. Strang, which is why they settled on that age for free vaccines.

Strang said about $500,000 was spent on people hospitalized for shingles in 2023, but outside of that, shingles can exacerbate people’s underlying function, which can also cost the health-care system a lot.

The government announced free shingles vaccines were coming in their 2025-26 budget, but Premier Tim Houston announced the launch date on Tuesday.

“If you know somebody who’s had shingles or suffered from is pretty debilitating. It could be a really, really nasty condition, for sure, and there’s a vaccine, but the vaccine is often just out of reach financially for too many people,” said Houston.