Switching from one vaccine product to another can have a significant impact on a country’s budget. Health officials need to consider a variety of factors, not just vaccine price alone, to determine if making a switch makes economic sense. Sometimes this isn’t known until after the switch is completed.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health introduced the rotavirus vaccine ROTARIX® in its routine immunization program in 2016. Two years later, the Ministry decided to switch to ROTAVAC®, a rotavirus vaccine made in India. Given ROTAVAC’s lower price, such a move might seem like a clear choice. However, the overall cost of vaccination programs is influenced by a variety of vaccine characteristics, such as cold chain requirements and the number of doses required.
To evaluate the costs, impact, and cost-effectiveness of the switch from ROTARIX to ROTAVAC, PATH worked with Palestinian partners and the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation (RVF) on an economic analysis to comprehensively evaluate all the cost implications of this change. This study provides compelling evidence to validate the government’s decision to switch to this lower-cost rotavirus vaccine. It found that both vaccines have a high probability of being cost-effective compared to no vaccination in Palestine. But when compared to ROTARIX, ROTAVAC was cost-saving.
The study’s findings may be useful for other countries that are considering a switch, particularly middle-income countries that finance their own immunization programs. The results were published in PLOS ONE and summarized in a recent PATH issue brief, which is available in English, French, Arabic, and Russian.
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