COVID-19 vaccines' first-year benefit modelled at $6.43–64.3 trillion against $79.4 billion in costs

Benjamin, Barnsley, Watson and Jit published a model-based economic evaluation of the global return on investment of COVID-19 vaccines in PLOS Medicine (journals.plos.org). It covers the first year of the vaccination programme, 8 December 2020 to 8 December 2021. According to the authors, vaccine development and delivery cost $79.4 billion, while the health and economic benefits of vaccination were valued between $6.43 and $64.3 trillion journals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgOpen source ↗.

In the base case analysis the return on investment was $59.7–809 per dollar invested. Across probabilistic sensitivity analyses for both valuation approaches it ranged from $60.3 to $753 journals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgOpen source ↗. These figures are the monetary value of societal benefit, not financial profit.

Method and scope

The authors estimated life years and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained from averted deaths, infections and hospitalizations. They valued these benefits in two ways: cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis. The results were compared with the costs of vaccine development, manufacturing and delivery journals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgOpen source ↗.

According to the scinexx summary of the work, the model compared a scenario with the vaccines actually administered against one with no vaccination, covering 173 countries. The summary cites about 1.50 billion infections and 51.5 million hospitalizations averted, and 14.4–19.8 million deaths averted in an earlier published model. Together this corresponds to roughly 364 million QALYs gained.

Distribution and limitations

When expressed as a proportion of gross domestic product per capita, high-income countries saw the greatest health benefits per person vaccinated. Low-income countries gained the greatest nonhealth benefits per person vaccinated journals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgOpen source ↗.

The authors name two limitations: reliance on previous analyses of the impact of COVID-19 vaccination, and a time horizon restricted to the first year of the programme journals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgOpen source ↗.

The authors describe the rapid development and delivery of the vaccines as an excellent investment. They state that vaccine development and equitable global distribution should be prioritized before and during global health crises journals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgjournals.plos.orgOpen source ↗.