Two-Dose Hepatitis B Vaccination Expected To Reduce Costs In Long Run.(Brief Article)

2001 SEP 5 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Even though the cost of a two-dose regimen of hepatitis B vaccine may be more for adolescents in the short term, in the long run, it could save money, encourage more vaccination compliance, and lower infection rates, researchers say.

Those researchers, members of a North American research consortium, developed a decision analysis model to predict costs and lifetime outcomes when administering a 2-dose hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine regimen to adolescents in public schools, public health clinics, and private sector settings.

The analysis compared the predicted costs of administering two-dose regimens with three-dose regimens and accounted for short-term costs and long-term costs, including the cost of becoming infected with HBV.

"Predicted increases in compliance with a 2-dose vaccination regimen contributed to a higher probability of seroprotection in each setting," described Hugh P. Levaux of The Lewin Group, a health and human services consulting firm, and colleagues at Merck Research Laboratories, Louisiana State University, and Quintiles Canada, Inc.

The group predicted in their long-term, lifetime analysis that greater cost-effectiveness and lower infection rates could be achieved by young individuals receiving two doses of the vaccine in each of the three settings because ...