Economic assessment of incorporating the hexavalent vaccine as part of the National Immunization Program of Peru

Abstract

Background This study aimed to estimate the economic impact of replacing the current Peruvian primary immunization scheme for infants under 1 year old with an alternative scheme with similar efficacy, based on a hexavalent vaccine. Methods A cost-minimization analysis compared the costs associated with vaccine administration, adverse reactions medical treatment, logistical activities, and indirect social costs associated with time spent by parents in both schemes. A budgetary impact analysis assessed the financial impact of the alternative scheme on healthcare budget. Results Incorporating the hexavalent vaccine would result in a 15.5% net increase in healthcare budget expenditure ($48,281,706 vs $55,744,653). Vaccination costs would increase by 54.1%, whereas logistical and adverse reaction costs would be reduced by 59.8% and 33.1%, respectively. When including indirect social costs in the analysis, the budgetary impact was reduced to 8.7%. Furthermore, the alternative scheme would enable the liberation of 17.5% of national vaccines storage capacity. Conclusions Despite of the significant reduction of logistical and adverse reaction costs, including the hexavalent vaccine into the National Immunization Program of Peru in place of the current vaccination scheme for infants under 1 year of age would increase the public financial budget of the government as it would represent larger vaccine acquisition costs. Incorporating the indirect costs would reduce the budgetary impact demonstrating the social value of the alternative scheme. This merits consideration by government bodies, and future studies investigating such benefits would be informative.

Estimating the Total Societal Cost of a Hexavalent Vaccine versus a Pentavalent Vaccine with Hepatitis B in South Korea

“…The study supported the advantages of fully liquid vaccines over reconstituted vaccines having the potential of cost savings by shortening vaccine preparation time and reducing the risk of vaccination error [19]. Similar results were seen when introducing the ready-to-use hexavalent vaccine into the national vaccination program in Peru that reduce total costs due to lower time costs despite an increase in vaccine costs [21]. A similar cost analysis was also performed for the DTaP-based hexavalent vaccine (DTaP-292 IPV-Hib-HepB) in Malaysia.…”

“…These findings were the incentives to investigate more in depth the rates of infection of pentavalent vaccines to be reconstituted versus the hexavalent vaccine that is ready to be used and estimate their cost difference. Studies on the economic value of the hexavalent vaccine suggested the following costs to be assessed: cost of the vaccine, cost of inpatient and/or outpatient visits, delivery cost, time cost, labor cost, cost for immunization errors and adverse events, and waste cost [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. Our study adds the cost of infection contamination following immunization using the results of a model construct.…”

Promoting higher-valent pediatric combination vaccines in China: challenges and recommendations for action

“…These higher-valent pediatric combination vaccines have demonstrated many advantages over monovalent, bivalent, and trivalent vaccines. Tetravalent, pentavalent, and hexavalent vaccines improve compliance and timeliness of vaccination [ 2 ], reduce healthcare professionals’ workloads [ 3 ] and risk of needlestick injuries [ 4 ], decrease the number of injections to save space for more new antigens in vaccination schedule, simplify immunization procedures [ 5 ], increase vaccination coverage [ 6 ], and minimize healthcare expenditures [ 7 ].…”

Cost minimization analysis of a hexavalent vaccine in Argentina

“…Switching to the hexavalent vaccine would be expected to simplify logistics and associated delivery infrastructure, reduce the number of injections and side effects, as well as minimize administration error which may result in better acceptability, convenience and compliance, and ultimately improved vaccination coverage [ 13 ]. Previous studies assessing the potential economic impact of introducing the hexavalent vaccine in the national childhood vaccination programs of Peru, Colombia, and Chile suggest that it would lead to additional acquisition costs, which are partial mitigated by improved logistics, and reduced incidence of adverse events [ 14 – 16 ]. Here, we assessed the differences in cost from switching from the current childhood primary and booster vaccination schedule with the pentavalent vaccine plus IPV (DTwP-Hib-HB plus IPV) to an alternative series with the hexavalent vaccine (DTaP-Hib-HB-IPV) in Argentina, assuming similar levels of effectiveness across the six biologicals of the vaccine.…”