A critical literature review of health economic evaluations of rotavirus vaccination

Abstract

Two licensed vaccines are available to prevent RVGE in infants. A worldwide critical review of economic evaluations of these vaccines was conducted. The objective was to describe differences in methodologies, assumptions and inputs and determine the key factors driving differences in conclusions. 68 economic evaluations were reviewed. RV vaccination was found to be cost-effective in developing countries, while conclusions varied between studies in developed countries. Many studies found that vaccination was likely to be cost-effective under some scenarios, such as lower prices scenarios, inclusion of herd protection, and/or adoption of a societal perspective. Other reasons for variability included uncertainty around healthcare visits incidence and lack of consensus on quality of life (QoL) valuation for infants and caregivers. New evidence on the vaccination effectiveness in real-world, new ways of modeling herd protection and assessments of QoL in children could help more precisely define the conditions under which RV vaccination would be cost-effective in developed countries.

Keywords: :

• rotavirus
• vaccination
• review
• economic evaluations
• cost-effectiveness
• pediatrics
• economic model

Acknowledgments

This article was funded by Sanofi Pasteur MSD. Sibilia Quilici and Stuart Caroll are employees of Sanofi Pasteur MSD. Samuel Aballéa and Aurélie Millier are employees from Creativ-Ceutical which received funding from Sanofi Pasteur MSD. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Footnotes

* Developers of models were contacted by a WHO officer to invite them to participate in the model comparison. The process resulted in three models provided to the authors: Roxanne (Rotarix™ Analyses of Economics) designed by GSK Pharmaceuticals, POLYMOD, developed by public financing within a European-Union project and CoRoVa (Consensus Rotavirus model Vaccination) designed by Sanofi Pasteur MSD but developed by the University of Groningen within the context of an unrestricted grant.

^† CEA is a form of economic analysis that compares the relative costs and outcomes (effects) of two or more courses of action. Typically the CEA is expressed in terms of a ratio where the denominator is a gain in health from a measure and the numerator is the cost associated with the health gain. CUA is a CEA using years (QALY) as outcome measure.

^‡ BIA is a tool used to predict and understand the potential financial consequences of introducing a new health-care intervention into a drug reimbursement system given inevitable resource constraints.