Background: To estimate the health economic consequences of the recently introduced PPSV23 vaccination programme for persons aged 65+ in Denmark and of a potential extension of the programme to include persons aged 60-64 years.
Research design and methods: A Markov model was adapted to the Danish healthcare setting to simulate the epidemiological and economic burden of invasive pneumococcal disease and non-bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia using information from published sources and Danish databases.
Results: We found that the recent introduction of an age-based vaccination programme offering PPSV23 vaccination to the population of persons aged 65+ in Denmark will lead to a societal gain of EUR 72.0 million and prevent 19,707 cases of pneumococcal disease and 1,308 deaths per 1 million persons during the five-year study period.Similarly, we estimate that extending the programme to include persons aged 60-64 will lead to a gain of EUR 14.6 million per 1 million persons and prevent an additional 6,223 cases of pneumococcal disease and 185 deaths.
Conclusion: The recent introduction of the age-based vaccination programme offering PPSV23 vaccination to all persons aged 65+ in Denmark is cost-effective. This is also the case if the programme is extended to include persons aged 60-64.
Keywords: Costs; PPSV23; cost-effectiveness; pneumococcal disease; vaccination programme; vaccine.