Economic evaluation of strategies against coronavirus: a systematic review

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 outbreak was defined as a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization. After that, COVID-19 has enormously influenced health systems around the world, and it has claimed more than 4.2 million deaths until July 2021. The pandemic has led to global health, social and economic costs. This situation has prompted a crucial search for beneficial interventions and treatments, but little is known about their monetary value. This study is aimed at systematically reviewing the articles conducted on the economic evaluation of preventive, control and treatment strategies against COVID-19. Material and method We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar from December 2019 to October 2021 to find applicable literature to the economic evaluation of strategies against COVID-19. Two researchers screened potentially eligible titles and abstracts. The Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) checklist was used to quality assessment of studies. Results Thirty-six studies were included in this review, and the average CHEERS score was 72. Cost-effectiveness analysis was the most common type of economic evaluation, used in 21 studies. And the quality-adjusted life year (QALY) was the main outcome applied to measure the effectiveness of interventions, which was used in 19 studies. In addition, articles were reported a wide range of incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), and the lowest cost per QALY ($321.14) was related to the use of vaccines. Conclusion Based on the results of this systematic review, it seems that all strategies are likely to be more cost-effective against COVID-19 than no intervention and vaccination was the most cost-effective strategy. This research provides insight for decision makers in choosing optimal interventions against the next waves of the current pandemic and possible future pandemics.

The Role and Value of Professional Rapid Testing of Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs) in Europe: A Special Focus on the Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania

“…On the other hand, rapid molecular and multiplex tests, which in general are more expensive than RT-qPCR, show promising cost-effectiveness in studies undertaken in emergency rooms and hospital settings in high-resource countries [ 70 , 71 ]. Whatever the option, accurate diagnosis remains critical as effective treatments for COVID-19 have the potential to offer value for money to healthcare systems, people, and society [ 222 ].…”

Cost-effectiveness analysis of COVID-19 booster doses and oral antivirals in the Indo-Pacific

“…We included the ongoing health outcomes and productivity losses associated with severe disease occurring within this one-year time horizon; these ongoing effects were discounted by 3%. The choice to use a time horizon of one year aligned with existing economic modelling for COVID-19, see systematic review [9]. A one-year time horizon was appropriate for the evaluation of oral antivirals since the effects of oral antivirals are short-term and localised to the individual receiving the antivirals.…”

Cost-effectiveness of mask mandates on subways to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the United States

“…Research conducted in various settings and countries has consistently demonstrated that widespread mask wearing in public can contribute to reducing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, leading to a decrease in incident cases, hospitalizations, and deaths [8][9][10][11][12][13]. However, despite several economic evaluations of nonpharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19, only a limited number of studies included public mask wearing as a component of their research [14,15]. These studies have primarily examined broader community contexts [16], college campuses [17], or other countries [18][19][20].…”