Tanja Karvonen

Vaccines and Immunization: Implementing and Questioning Cost-effectiveness Analysis Tanja Karvonen

Vaccines are one of the most powerful health interventions. However, the opportunity cost of investing in immunization needs to be taken in consideration. The objective of our study is to assess and question the cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of vaccination with a case example of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7). We are interested in finding out, how to assess the true value of vaccines. In order to have the answer to the posed study problem, we rely on recent literature of economic evaluations and implement the CEA with a numerical example based on a Markov model. To assess reliably the costs and consequences of vaccination the following matters should be accounted: 1)correct model type and structure, 2)appropriate economic evaluation method and perspective, 3)reliable clinical data, 4)accounting for uncertainty and 5)adequate cost-effectiveness measures. As a consequence of appropriate CEA methods the true value of vaccines is more assessable. Still, there will remain country-specific differences, which will complicate comparison of the CEAs. Nevertheless, the decision-maker will have more adequate information to support the policy-making.