under 5 years, and it more than adequately pays for itself in secondary health care costs, said Tuija Leino of the National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, and associates.
Since 2009, all Finnish children younger than 5 years have been offered an RV vaccine.
The investigators conducted a register-based study comparing the RV disease burden before and after introduction of RV vaccination, with the years 1999-2005 as the prevaccine period and the years 2010-2014 as the vaccination period. The study population was all children younger than 5 years living in Finland during the two study periods.
CDC/Dr. Erskine Palmer
A transmission electron micrograph shows intact rotavirus double-shelled particles.
The relative reduction in inpatient RVGE incidence ranged from 86% in the 4-year-old children to 94% in the 0-year-old children, the researchers reported. That amounted to 843 prevented inpatient cases in children under 5 years.
The highest incidence of RVGE, which is rarely treated in hospital outpatients, was 0.4/1,000 person-years in children aged 1 year or younger. The relative reduction in outpatient RVGE incidence was 86% in the 0-year-olds and 100% in the 3- and 4-year-olds. The RV vaccination program prevented only 64 hospital outpatient cases in children younger than 5 years of age in 2014.
RV vaccination also resulted in a reduction of unspecified viral gastroenteritis (UVGE) incidence by 84%. Because the incidence of UVGE in 1-year-olds during the prevaccine era was more than twice the incidence of RVGE, the absolute reduction from 10.7 to 1.7 per 1,000 person-years “reflects a removal of a much larger disease burden than the reduction in the most specific outcome of inpatient RVGE,” the researchers said.
The annually prevented inpatient UVGE cases in children up to 4 years was 1,522, almost twice as many as the prevented inpatient RVGE cases. In the prevaccine era, the UVGE reduction was greatest among 1-year-olds, at 71%. In children younger than 5 years of age, 1,313 UVGE hospital outpatient cases were prevented in 2014.
“Considering secondary health care, the program annually pays for itself almost two times over in Finland,” the investigators concluded.
Read more in Vaccine (2017 Oct 9;35[42]:5611-7).
The researchers had no conflicts of interest.
cnellist@frontlinmedcom.com