[Evaluation of economic outcomes of “hepatitis B vaccine event reported by media” in China, 2013]

Objective: To edentify the increased cost, the decreased benefits and effectiveness of hepatitis B vaccine event reported by media in 2013 in China both in Chinese nationwide and in Shenzhen. Methods: The decision analytic-Markov models were constructed. The cohort born in 2013 in nationwide and in Shenzhen were respectively introduced to the models. The vaccination coverage and the rates of antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen were determined as major parameters. The average costs and benefits per case, the effectiveness which included the numbers of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and the patients with HBV-related diseases, the average quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) per case were calculated from the medical-care and societal perspectives. The benefit cost ratio (BCR), ratio of the total costs and the net QALYs were as indicators of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, respictively. Results: In nationwide, the BCRs decreased from 9.10 and 8.58 to 2.48 and 2.43, respectively, because the average costs increased to 6 796.60 yuan (RMB) and 8 451.45 yuan, and average benefits decreased to 6 799.57 yuan and 8 484.41 yuan, respectively, from the medical-care and societal perspectives. In Shenzhen, the BCRs decreased from 16.21 and 14.51 to 3.11 and 3.04 with the average costs of 5 244.88 yuan and 8 937.64 yuan, and average benefits of 5 248.11 yuan and 8 977.27 yuan. Totally, the increase of 2.1314 million and 181 hundreds of the HBV infectors occurred for the event in nationwide and in Shenzhen, respectively. Of all the infectors increased the most, the numbers of acute and chronic hepatitis B were 1 904 hundreds and 807 hundreds in nationwide, 794 and 395 in Shenzhen, espectively. The decreases of average QALY per case were 0.119 8 in nationwide and 0.090 6 in Shenzhen. The costs per averted a QALY increased from 6 231.90 yuan to 22 883.51 yuan in nationwide, from 3 567.25 yuan to 1 8571.49 yuan in Shenzhen (for medical-care perspective), from 8 252.79 yuan and 6 807.45 yuan to 29 091.92 yuan and 32 553.60 yuan (for societal perspective). Conclusion: The hepatitis B vaccine event reported by media in 2013 in China caused the costs increased, both benefits and the economic values obviously decreased.