Economic evaluation of infant and adolescent hepatitis B vaccination in the UK

M. Ruby Siddiqui, Nigel Gay, W. John Edmunds, Mary Ramsay*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    34 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    A Markov model of hepatitis B virus (HBV) disease progression in the UK estimated that 81% of predicted HBV-associated morbidity and mortality could be prevented by universal infant vaccination at a cost of approximately £260,000 per QALY gained.Universal adolescent vaccination would be less effective (45% prevented) and less cost-effective (£493,000 per QALY gained). Higher HBV incidence rates in males and intermediate/high risk ethnic populations meant it was approximately 3 times more cost-effective to vaccinate these groups. At current vaccine costs a selective infant vaccination programme, based on vaccinating intermediate/high risk ethnic populations would not be considered cost effective.The threshold cost per vaccinated child at which the programme would be considered cost-effective was investigated. Universal infant vaccination would be cost-effective if the average cost of vaccinating each child against HBV, including vaccine and administration costs of all doses, was less than £4.09. Given the low cost of vaccination required to make a universal programme cost-effective the most feasible policy in the UK would be to use a suitably priced combined vaccine that included the other antigens in the current infant vaccination schedule.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)466-475
    Number of pages10
    JournalVaccine
    Volume29
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 10 Jan 2011

    Keywords

    • Cost-effectiveness
    • Hepatitis B
    • Vaccination

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