Abstract

Objectives

To identify the most cost-efficient combination of pneumococcal vaccines in infants and aging adults for a 10-year period in Brazil.

Methods

Constrained optimization (CO) prioritized 9 pneumococcal vaccine regimens according to their gain in quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and their related costs over a prespecified time horizon with defined constraints for 2 age groups, infants and aging adults. The analysis starts from the current universal infant vaccination of pneumococcal non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae protein D conjugate vaccine (PHiD-CV), 2 primary and 1 booster dose at 2, 4, and 12 months, respectively. Key constraints are the fixed annual vaccine budget increase and the relative return on investment (ROI ) per regimen, which must be > 1, the reference intervention being the current vaccination strategy in infants and the most cost-efficient one in aging adults.

Results

The CO analysis including all the constraints indicates that over 10 years the maximum extra health gain is 126 194 QALYs for an extra budget of $974 million Brazilian reals (ROI  = 1.15). Results could be improved with a higher proportion of the at-risk population in aging adults, less herd effect, and better QALY scores.

Conclusion

The study shows that with 4 constraints on budget, time horizon, vaccine coverage, and cost efficiency, a CO analysis could identify the most cost-efficient overall pneumococcal vaccination strategy for Brazil, allowing for limited vaccine budget increase while obtaining appropriate health gain.