Assessing costs and cost effectiveness of pneumococcal disease and vaccination within Kaiser Permanente.

Objective: To review studies of the costs of pneumococcal disease and the cost effectiveness of pneumococcal conjugate vaccination conducted in association with the Kaiser Permanente Pneumococcal conjugate Efficacy Trial.
Results: for each birth cohort of 3.8 million infants, routine pneumococcal conjugate vaccination program for healthy infants would prevent more than 12000 (78% of potential) meningitis and bacteremia cases, 53000 (69% of potential) pneumonia cases, and 1 million (8% of potential) otitis media episodes. Before accounting for vaccine costs, the vaccination program would reduce the costs of pneumococcal disease by $342 million in medical and $415 million in work-loss and other costs. Vaccination of healthy infants would result in net savings for society if the vaccine cost less than $46 per dose, and net savings for the health care payer if the vaccine cost less than $18 per dose.