Intranasal Vaccination of Children Cost Effective In Some Situations.(Brief Article)

2001 AUG 22 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

by N.R. Saltmarsh, staff medical writer - Vaccinating healthy children intranasally against influenza is cost effective when a group-based strategy is used, researchers in the United States have found.

"Intranasal influenza vaccine has proven clinical efficacy and may be better tolerated by young children and their families than an injectable vaccine," explained B.R. Luce at MEDTAP International, Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues at other institutions. "This study determined the potential cost-effectiveness (CE) of an intranasal influenza vaccine among healthy children."

In this multicenter study, researchers analyzed direct and indirect costs from data collected in a prospective two-year efficacy trial of intranasal influenza vaccine and of data from the literature. Study subjects included 1,602 healthy children ages 15 to 71 months in the first year, 1,358 of whom were enrolled in the second year. The children received one or two doses of intranasal vaccine or placebo and researchers determined the cost per febrile influenza-like illness (ILI) day avoided.

Over the course of two years, vaccinated children had an average of 1.2 fewer ILI fever days each than unvaccinated children, reported Luce and coworkers. In an individual-based vaccine delivery scenario with vaccine given twice in the first year and once every subsequent year, at an assumed base case cost per dose of $20 for the vaccine and its administration, CE was approximately $30/febrile ILI day avoided, they said. In this scenario, vaccination was cost saving if vaccine cost was

The real cost benefit emerged in the group-based ...