Introduction: During an influenza epidemic, where early vaccination is crucial, pharmacies may be a resource to increase vaccine distribution reach and capacity.
Methods: We utilized an agent-based model of the US and a clinical and economics outcomes model to simulate the impact of different influenza epidemics and the impact of utilizing pharmacies in addition to traditional (hospitals, clinic/physician offices, and urgent care centers) locations for vaccination for the year 2017.
Results: For an epidemic with a reproductive rate (R0) of 1.30, adding pharmacies with typical business hours averted 11.9 million symptomatic influenza cases, 23,577 to 94,307 deaths, $1.0 billion in direct (vaccine administration and healthcare) costs, $4.2-44.4 billion in productivity losses, and $5.2-45.3 billion in overall costs (varying with mortality rate). Increasing the epidemic severity (R0 of 1.63), averted 16.0 million symptomatic influenza cases, 35,407 to 141,625 deaths, $1.9 billion in direct costs, $6.0-65.5 billion in productivity losses, and $7.8-67.3 billion in overall costs (varying with mortality rate). Extending pharmacy hours averted up to 16.5 million symptomatic influenza cases, 145,278 deaths, $1.9 billion direct costs, $4.1 billion in productivity loss, and $69.5 billion in overall costs. Adding pharmacies resulted in a cost-benefit of $4.1 to $11.5 billion, varying epidemic severity, mortality rate, pharmacy hours, location vaccination rate, and delay in the availability of the vaccine.
Conclusions: Administering vaccines through pharmacies in addition to traditional locations in the event of an epidemic can increase vaccination coverage, mitigating up to 23.7 million symptomatic influenza cases, providing cost-savings up to $2.8 billion to third-party payers and $99.8 billion to society. Pharmacies should be considered as points of dispensing epidemic vaccines in addition to traditional settings as soon as vaccines become available.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6279616 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2018.09.040 | DOI Listing |
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Article Synopsis
- The study evaluates the effectiveness of live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) for children aged 2-17 and quadrivalent influenza vaccine (QIV) for others in Ireland over two flu seasons.
- A test-negative case control methodology was used to compare vaccination status of individuals with confirmed influenza versus those without, analyzing data from primary care presentations for acute respiratory infections (ARI).
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