Cost-Effectiveness of Introducing Pneumococcal Vaccination Programme

Pneumococcal disease is one of the important public health issues worldwide. The World Health Organisation estimates that 1.6 million people die every year from this disease, 0.7¿1 million of which are children aged less than 5 years.This book reports the outcome of a study to determine the clinical and cost burden of pneumococcal disease in Malaysia and to evaluate the economic impact of introducing Pneumococcal Vaccine in the National Immunisation Programme for the prevention of invasive and non-invasive pneumococcal diseases. A retrospective review of patient medical records from four public hospitals in Malaysia was conducted to quantify the cost and the number of paediatric and adult hospital admissions attributable to pneumococcal pneumonia, septicaemia, meningitis and acute otitis media. A total 2.3 million cases of pneumococcal diseases were estimated in Malaysian annually. The cost-effectiveness analysis using Markov cohort model predicted that the vaccine would to lead to a significant reduction in the incidence of all manifestations of pneumococcal diseases, and importantly will save lives of adults and children.