2024-10-26 09:52:00
Immunization is a key part of global health systems, preventing life-threatening diseases and contributing to longer, healthier lives. Vaccination programs have made it possible to achieve high immunization rates and therefore reduce the incidence of numerous infectious diseases, including diphtheria, polio and rubella.
However, although they are widely recognised, the benefits of vaccination are difficult to measure, particularly when it comes to analyzing national vaccination programs globally. For this reason, GSK, a global biopharmaceutical company, promoted, with the help of several experts, the preparation of the study “Cost-benefit analysis of the National Immunization Program in Spain“, recently published in the journal ‘Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics’, with the aim of evaluating the cost-benefit ratio of the national vaccination program in our country.
The analysis carried out measured the impact in health and economic terms from a social point of view, which implies vaccinating a cohort of newborns for life, compared to not vaccinating them. For this reason, two scenarios were considered: on the one hand the vaccination calendar (CV) for 2020 and on the other an expanded CV, in which four additional vaccination programs have been added: rotavirus and meningococcal B in childhood, reminder of whooping cough in over 65s and herpes zoster in people over the age of 50, this expanded program is quite similar to what we have in 2024. The results are presented as a cost-benefit ratio, which shows the economic benefit for every euro invested in these vaccination programs.
The conclusions of this study show that the total investment to vaccinate this cohort for life, according to the 2020 calendar, would amount to 168.5 million euros and 275.5 million euros with the extended program while the potential benefits would be 772 .2 and 803.0 million euros, respectively. This translates, in comparative terms, into a social cost-benefit ratio of 4.58 euros for the 2020 CV and 2.91 euros for the expanded CV.
These results also highlight the great social benefit that vaccination offers children. The difference in the cost-benefit ratio compared to vaccination in adults has its origin in the fact that pediatric vaccination programs are more developed and, since they are children, they can benefit from the effects of vaccines administered throughout their lives. However, it should also be taken into account that, according to a recent report by the Office of Health Economics (OHE), if the economic benefits that adult vaccination can bring to society more broadly were taken into consideration, a return of 19 euros is calculated for every euro invested in four adult vaccination programs. MTT/LDB
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