Health and economic impact of introducing norovirus vaccination in England accounting for acute kidney injury: Model-based cost-effectiveness analysis

Norovirus vaccines are currently undergoing advanced clinical trials. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a serious sequelae of norovirus infection. This study evaluated the health and economic impact of implementing a norovirus vaccination programme in England, and assessed the contribution of AKI.

We constructed a deterministic age-stratified dynamic-transmission compartmental model. Three single-dose norovirus vaccination strategies were compared to a no-vaccination strategy: targeting children under 5 years of age, targeting adults aged 65 years or older, and targeting both age groups simultaneously. We estimated the impact on preventing primary care attendances, hospitalisations, and mortality from symptomatic norovirus, as well as hospitalisations and mortality due to norovirus-related AKI in adults aged 65 years or older. We evaluated the cost effectiveness over a 10 year time horizon, from a healthcare payer perspective, and discounted costs and quality adjusted life years (QALYs) at 3.5%. We performed probabilistic sensitivity analysis. In one-way sensitivity analysis, we varied the vaccine prices and the proportion of AKI-linked norovirus hospitalisations.

A combined vaccination strategy of targeting children and older adults reduced symptomatic infections by 64% (37-93%) and 66% (35-95%) in these age groups, respectively. When including AKI outcomes, all vaccination strategies were cost-effective at £ 35 per dose and 60% efficacy. At a willingness-to-pay of £ 20,000 per QALY gained, the combined vaccination strategy had a 94% probability of being the most cost-effective option. Even with a norovirus-related AKI hospitalisation rate as low as 3% among symptomatic norovirus-infected adults, the strategy remained cost-effective. When excluding AKI outcomes, all strategies were not cost-effective.

Introducing a norovirus vaccine could be cost-effective in England when accounting for the AKI-related sequelae, which are critical for the health economic evaluation.