Vaccination made good financial sense in addition to saving lives.
Still does.
Edited by Swati Mestri, reviewed by Robert Egan
Every dollar spent on COVID-19 vaccine development and
distribution generated an estimated $81 to $810 in economic value during the
first year that vaccines were given, according to new research published in the journal PLOS Medicine.
Dr. Fauci was right
The study—the first global analysis of the return on
investment for COVID-19 vaccines—shows that vaccines not only averted severe
illness and saved lives but were also a sound investment.
"Our study provides evidence that the unprecedented,
rapid investments made into COVID-19 vaccines early in the pandemic paid off
massively both in health and economic benefits," said study author Mark
Jit, professor of global health at NYU School of Global Public Health.
"Vaccine development, as well as equitable vaccine distribution globally,
should be prioritized before and during global health crises."
Counting costs beyond vaccine purchases
Vaccines played a critical role during the COVID-19
pandemic, but their development required extraordinary effort—and
spending—among governments, pharmaceutical companies and nonprofit
organizations. The resulting vaccines were highly effective at preventing
severe illness and death, with one study estimating that between 14 million
and 20 million deaths were averted in the first year that vaccines were
available.
Despite their health impact, the economic value of these
vaccines has not been examined on a global scale. Moreover, most analyses of
the cost-effectiveness of immunization look at the cost of purchasing the
vaccine itself from its manufacturer, not the cost of developing it.
"With other vaccines, a company takes on the risk by
investing its own money to develop a vaccine. But the COVID
vaccine was not purely a private sector decision—the U.S., the European
Union and other countries like China poured substantial funding into this to
reduce the risk for vaccine companies," said Jit. "We wanted to
understand how these costs compared to health and economic outcomes."
Measuring the first year's returns
To measure the impact of this investment, the researchers
evaluated the economic value of COVID-19 vaccines during the first year that
vaccines became available (Dec. 8, 2020–Dec. 8, 2021), when they had the
greatest impact because people had limited immunity to the virus.
Using data from 173 countries, the researchers compared the
costs of vaccine development, manufacturing and delivery with health and
economic measures related to the vaccine. These included years of life gained,
quality-of-life measures from avoiding hospitalizations and deaths, work
productivity and averted health care costs.
The researchers then used two different methods to quantify
the value of saving lives and improving health: a cost-benefit analysis
commonly used in the public sector, as well as a cost-effectiveness analysis
used in the health sector to quantify savings based on what would be spent in
health care to save someone's life.
Overall, COVID-19 vaccine development and delivery worldwide
cost $79.4 billion, but the health and economic benefits of vaccination were
valued between $6.43 trillion and $64.3 trillion, translating to a return on
investment of $81 to $810 per dollar spent.
"While developing and rolling out these vaccines at
unprecedented speed required substantial upfront investment, the health and
economic benefits far outweighed the costs within just one year," said
Hallie Benjamin, lead author of the paper who worked on the research as an MSc
student in public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical
Medicine (LSHTM).
Unequal access shaped national benefits
The researchers found significant disparities in the
vaccine's return on investment across countries, with high-income countries
benefiting more than low- and middle-income countries. High-income countries
gained the greatest economic benefits due to early
access, higher uptake of vaccines, faster rollouts and older populations
who were at risk for severe outcomes.
In contrast, many low- and middle-income countries didn't
have widespread access to the vaccine until late 2021, after many people had
already contracted COVID-19 and developed some immunity. Despite this,
low-income countries still had the highest averted health care and productivity
costs relative to their own economies and populations.
"The lesson is there should be a way to get this
vaccine to countries that need it faster. Because of the delays, it wasn't as
useful to many of those countries as it could have been," said Jit.
Preparing for the next viral threat
The authors note that the study does not examine the
economic benefit of COVID-19 vaccines beyond their first year, when rates of
infection were lower and most people had developed some immunity. But in the
face of a new viral threat, the findings show that rapidly investing in vaccine
development can safeguard public health and preserve economic stability.
"By preventing billions of infections and millions of
hospitalizations and deaths, the vaccines generated enormous value for
societies and economies worldwide. However, our research also shows that these
benefits were not shared equally between higher- and lower-income countries,
highlighting the importance of equitable and timely vaccine distribution.
Through studying these inequalities, we hope our findings can help guide future
research into how vaccination programs can improve health and economic outcomes
worldwide," said Benjamin.
Additional study authors include Gregory Barnsley of LSHTM
and Oliver Watson of Imperial College London.
Publication details
A global return-on-investment of COVID-19 vaccines in the
first year of the vaccination programme: A model-based economic evaluation, PLOS
Medicine (2026). journals.plos.org/plosmedicine … journal.pmed.1004772
Journal information: PLoS Medicine
