A new study published in Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation analyzes the cost-effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru.
Vaccination was health improving as well as cost-saving in almost all countries and scenarios (a realistic country-specific vaccination campaign, a standard campaign and an optimized standard campaign with higher but plausible population coverage). The analysis shows that vaccination in this group of countries prevented 573,141 deaths (508,826 standard; 685,442 optimized) and gained 5.07 million QALYs (4.53 standard; 6.03 optimized). Despite the incremental costs of vaccination campaigns, they had a total net cost saving to the health system of US$16.29 billion (US$16.47 standard; US$18.58 optimized). The realistic (base case) vaccination campaign in Chile was the only scenario, which was not cost saving, but it was still highly cost-effective with an ICER of US$22 per QALY gained.
The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in seven Latin American and Caribbean countries―that comprise nearly 80% of the region―was beneficial for population health and was also cost-saving or highly cost-effective.
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