A comparison of the use of economics in vaccine expert reviews.

We reviewed how health economics has been included in the vaccine expert review processes in a sample of countries. We identified two kinds of review processes - those in which vaccines and drugs are assessed using a common process, and those in which vaccines are assessed within the infectious disease framework. In either process, the countries recommend that their national pharmaco-economic (i.e., guidelines developed for drugs) guidelines be used to conduct the studies, although the guidelines themselves differ between countries. As a result of these factors, the decision process and the study outcomes can differ between countries, but because the vaccine adoption process includes other criteria as well, economic factors will not necessarily alter the outcome.