Further evidence for favorable cost-effectiveness of elderly influenza vaccination

Vaccination represents the single most cost-effective strategy to avert influenza-related morbidity, mortality and economic consequences. This review presents an analysis of the pharmacoeconomic aspects of influenza vaccination of the elderly. The methodology of the analysis focuses on the main drivers of the pharmacoeconomic profile of elderly influenza vaccination, in particular the vaccine effectiveness in terms of prevention of hospitalization and mortality, the background incidence of hospitalization and death in unvaccinated individuals and the relative costing of the vaccine compared with the costs of a hospital in-patient day. The variation in outcomes between different studies could partly be explained by differences in the main drivers defined above. This review demonstrates that the pharmacoeconomic profile of elderly influenza vaccination is highly favorable. From the vast majority of studies it appears that financial benefits of elderly influenza vaccination surpass the costs and that, when this is not the case, cost-effectiveness in terms of net costs per life-year gained is acceptable.