Abstract:
COVID-19 vaccines have reduced the negative health and economic impact of the COVID.19 pandemic by preventing severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths. In the new socio-economic normality, the COVID-19 vaccination strategy can be universal or high-risk and seasonal or not seasonal, and different vaccines can be used. The universal vaccination strategy can achieve greater health and herd immunity effects and it is associated with greater costs than the high-risk vaccination strategy. In each country, the optimal COVID-19 vaccination strategy must be decided by considering the advantages and disadvantages and assessing the costs, health effects and cost-effectiveness of the universal and high-risk vaccination strategies. The universal vaccination strategy should be implemented when the objective of the vaccination program is to achieve the highest health benefits from COVID-19 vaccination and when its incremental cost-effectiveness ratio is lower than EUR30,000−50,000 per QALY or LYG. The use of adapted vaccines targeting currently circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2 is necessary to avoid the immune escape of emerging variants.
Biography:
Pedro Plans-Rubió has been Responsible for Health Registries, Public Health Agency of Catalonia, Health Department of Catalonia, Spain. He received his MD from the School of Medicine, University of Barcelona; his PhD from the School of Medicine, University of Barcelona, his MSc in Health Economics from the School of Economics, University of Barcelona, and his MSc in Design of clinical and epidemiological studies from the School of Medicine, University of Barcelona. Specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health. Specialist in Labor Medicine. Member of the research group CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. He has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals on the epidemiology of infectious diseases, epidemiology of risk factors for chronic diseases and for infectious diseases, seroepidemiology, cost-effectiveness analysis of medicines and health programs, vaccination programs, and health policy. He has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals. He has published the book “Application of the cost-effectiveness of medicines and health programs in the health planning”, Elsevier, 2015. Editor-in Chief of Section “Vaccine Efficacy and Safety” of the journal Vaccines and Editor of several Special Issues of the journal Vaccines. Member of the Editorial Board of the journals Pharmacoeconomics Open.
