Rubella cost-effectiveness of therapy

Overview
When considering the financial costs of a certain disease, many different factors have to be taken into account. If there is a disease without a vaccination program, some of the costs ensued are expenditures made for treatment of acute illness, lost money from missing work, complications and chronic sequelae, and lost savings due to retardation or even death.

On the other hand, diseases such as rubella, have vaccination programs in place, and a vaccination program has different costs associated with it. There are certain expenditures to make the vaccine itself as well as its administration, treatment of complications associated with the vaccine, and the cost of implementing the vaccine program.

Cost-effectiveness of rubella vaccine program
A study was completed in 1983 to show the cost effectiveness of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination program. In 1983, the costs without a vaccination program came to a total of approximately $1.4 billion and the cost with a vaccination program totaled approximately $14.5 million. There was also a $380 million decrease in costs associated with the reduction in morbidity of rubella due to the vaccination program.

There are also some specific numbers from the 1983 study that shows the significant cost benefit there is to a vaccination program. They are as follow :


 * Direct costs for acute rubella: $4,600,049 without vaccination program
 * Direct costs for acute rubella: $51,308 with vaccination program
 * Direct costs for congenital rubella syndrome: $121,002,219 without vaccination program
 * Direct costs for congenital rubella syndrome: $2,420,044 with vaccination program
 * Indirect costs for acute rubella: $166,984,895 without vaccination program
 * Indirect costs for acute rubella: $218,376 with vaccination program
 * Indirect costs for congenital rubella syndrome: $94,613,965 without vaccination program
 * Indirect costs for congenital rubella syndrome: $5,113,782 with vaccination program