Cost-effectiveness of Prophylactic Zika Virus Vaccine in the Americas

Abstract

Zika virus remains a major public health concern because of its association with microcephaly and other neurologic disorders in newborns. A prophylactic vaccine has the potential to reduce disease incidence and eliminate birth defects resulting from prenatal Zika virus infection in future outbreaks. We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of a Zika vaccine candidate, assuming a protection efficacy of 60%–90%, for 18 countries in the Americas affected by the 2015–2017 Zika virus outbreaks. Encapsulating the demographics of these countries in an agent-based model, our results show that vaccinating women of reproductive age would be very cost-effective for sufficiently low (75% with vaccination. These findings indicate that targeted vaccination of women of reproductive age is a noteworthy preventive measure for mitigating the effects of Zika virus infection in future outbreaks.

Keywords

• Zika virus
• microcephaly
• vaccination
• agent-based simulations
• cost-effectiveness
• America