Do costs of varicella justify routine infant vaccination?

Excerpt

In the European Journal of Health Economics Banz et al. [1] now demonstrate that varicella (chickenpox) causes a significant burden for the German society. Varicella, primarily in childhood, is one of two diseases caused by the varicella zoster virus (vzv), the other being zoster, primarily in older age. Banz et al. estimate the annual economic burden of chickenpox at €188 million, some €154 million (82%) of which is attributable to work loss of parents caring for sick children. Medical costs make up the other 18%, with the vast majority of those costs related to the 90% of cases in children up to 12 years old. The costing approach in their contribution is based on a decision-analytic model that was previously used to evaluate childhood varicella vaccination in Germany by Banz et al. [2]. This model is named the "economic varicella vaccination tool for analysis" (EVITA) and was developed under a sponsorship by GlaxoSmithKline. The costing estimates published in this issue have been reported previously, as input data for EVITA, although less detail was provided [2]. …