Pharmaco-Economic Model for Dengue Vaccine: A New Approach Towards Affordability and Cost Effectiveness

With two billion people vulnerable, about 80 million dengue infections occur annually with 20000 to 30000 deaths. Pharmaco-economic models for quantifying cost-effective price of vaccine are useful tools for policy decision. We review in this paper dengue economic burdens and pharmaco-economic models, with particular reference to cost-effectiveness, based upon WHO guidelines that use Gross Domestic Product as a basis for valuation. Cost-effective price varies significantly, across and within nations. A major weakness in current pharmaco-economic models is the omission of cost of vaccine production, which is two order of magnitude lower than cost-effective prices. For example, the cost of production of dengue vaccine is estimated at US$0.50 per dose, while the cost-effective price estimated from current model is US$95 for Singapore. This paper proposes a modified model that yields a highly cost-effective price of US$5 per dose for Malaysia.