[Costs and benefits of measles vaccination]

Abstract

Former calculations of the medical benefit of measles immunization, concerning frequency of measles complications, effectiveness and risk of vaccination, showed that measles vaccination is a very useful measure. As the decision to introduce vaccination on a broad scale depends on financial deliberations, too, a cost-benefit analysis for Austria has been performed and the cost-benefit ratio as well as the cost-benefit difference calculated. The costs of measles vaccination which is performed mainly by private pediatricians at the present time, include costs of vaccine, physician and additional antipyretic and is 257.90 AS. The average costs of therapy per child consist of home treatment (287.20 AS), hospital treatment (162.50 AS) and care of residual cerebral damage (88.50 AS). Together with the costs of one week vacation which is warranted in Austria for the nursing of a sick child once a year, this makes a total sum of 1081.--AS. From these data the cost-benefit ratio was calculated by 2.95, the cost-benefit difference by 715.--AS per child. 5 years after the start of general measles vaccination of 1 year old children the accumulated costs of vaccination are equalled by the profit gained by prevention of the disease. The annual cost-benefit difference is positive after 3 years. 10 years after introduction of general vaccination the accumulated cost-benefit difference in Austria would be approximately 167 Mill. AS.