Healthcare spending in the case of a HPV16/18 population-wide vaccination programme

The policy of population-wide human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination has been debated as the introduction of such a programme in a low-resource country faces the risk of insufficient cost-effectiveness.

To assess the potential healthcare spending changes after the introduction of a HPV16/18 population-wide vaccination programme in Lithuania.

For a cost-effectiveness analysis, we used mathematical simulation and epidemiological data modelling based on a Lithuanian female population. We performed comparative analysis of an annual 12-year-old girls population-wide vaccination programme combined with cervical cancer screening programme compared to the screening programme strategy only.

HPV vaccination would gain an average of 35.6 life years per death avoided or up to 284.8 thousand life years would be gained over 90 years in total. The programme costs would be 2932.58 EUR per life year gained. All costs associated with the introduction of the vaccination programme could be recovered in 48 years. The HPV vaccination programme in Lithuania has the potential to generate up to 40.07 million EUR of economic returns annually compared with the current practice of the cervical screening alone.

In Lithuania the HPV16/18 vaccination programme would be economically effective only in the long term. The investment costs of HPV16/18 vaccination have the potential to be recovered.