Objectives: Ecuador introduced the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in 2010. A recent time series analysis has demonstrated the impact of 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV10) on hospitalized pneumococcal disease in children. We leveraged these estimates to calculate the return on investment (ROI) of PCV10 in Ecuador from 2010 to 2030 at the national and regional levels.
Methods: We used 2 approaches to estimate the economic benefits: (1) cost of illness, which includes treatment, transportation, and productivity loss averted, (2) and the value of statistical life, which reflects society's average willingness to pay to save one life. Costs of the immunization program include vaccine costs (doses, syringes, injection supplies) and immunization delivery costs (personnel, cold chain equipment and maintenance, transportation, distribution services, and other recurrent costs). We estimated the ROI by dividing the net benefits by costs.
Results: The ROI using the cost-of-illness approach was slightly negative in the introduction year. From 2011 to 2020, we estimated the ROI to be 0.45 (0.15-0.73). For the future decade, the ROI is estimated at 0.37 (-0.03 to 1.03). Using the value-of-statistical-life approach, the ROI was 1.46 (0.82-2.17) in the introduction year. In the first decade, the ROI was 1.01 (0.49-1.60); in the second decade, the ROI fell to 0.83 (0.23-1.78).
Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrate the total economic benefits of PCV10 in Ecuador exceed immunization program costs after the introduction year. Estimates from this study will inform country policy makers and will contribute to efforts to mobilize resources for immunization.
Keywords: 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; Ecuador; pneumococcal diseases; return of investment.
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