What do we know about the cost-effectiveness of pneumococcal conjugate vaccination in older adults?

The cost-effectiveness of 13-type pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) use in older adults, and the relative merits when compared to the 23-type polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine (PPV23), has been a topic of much debate. Although a number of economics evaluations have been conducted many of these were completed before the availability of critical data on PCV13 efficacy in older adults. Recent studies using this data have found conflicting results. This may in part reflect differences in the level of herd protection from infant pneumococcal vaccination programs in different countries. The costs and benefits of pneumococcal vaccination in adults are likely to rest on several critical parameters: the magnitude pneumococcal disease in older adults and the serotypes responsible for it, the efficacy of each vaccine against invasive and non-invasive pneumonia, the duration of vaccine protection, and differences in vaccine price. The ongoing changes in pneumococcal disease patterns highlight the need for economic evaluations to use recent serotype-specific disease estimates from the setting under consideration. In countries that do recommend PCV13 use in adults, post-implementation economic evaluation (using data from after a program is implemented) may be useful to help inform potential future changes to vaccine recommendations as well as the maximum price that should be paid for the vaccines in future negotiations.