Cost calculator for mass vaccination response to a US college campus outbreak of serogroup B meningococcal disease

• Published in: Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics Vol. 15; no. 4; pp. 978 - 986
• Main Authors: La, Elizabeth M., Talbird, Sandra E., Kanadanian, Koren V., Huang, Liping, Fain, Joel, Srivastava, Amit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Taylor & Francis 03-04-2019; Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Adolescent; College; costs; Disease Outbreaks - economics; Disease Outbreaks - prevention & control; Humans; IMD; Mass Vaccination - economics; MenB-FHBp; Meningitis, Meningococcal - prevention & control; Meningococcal Infections - prevention & control; Meningococcal Vaccines - administration & dosage; Meningococcal Vaccines - economics; Neisseria meningitidis, Serogroup B - immunology; outbreak; Research Paper; Serogroup; serogroup B meningococcal disease; Students - statistics & numerical data; United States; Universities - statistics & numerical data; vaccine; Young Adult; United States; IMD; costs; serogroup B meningococcal disease; vaccine; MenB-FHBp; College; outbreak
• ISSN: 2164-5515; 2164-554X
• DOI: 10.1080/21645515.2018.1556074

Serogroup B (MenB) is the leading cause of meningococcal disease among 16- to 23-year-olds in the United States and has been responsible for all 10 college outbreaks between 2011 and 2017. Outbreak-associated costs levy a substantial and unforeseen burden on colleges/universities and surrounding communities, in part because they involve collaboration with local and state health departments to develop points-of-dispensing (PODs) outbreak response plans and rapid mass vaccination of a large at-risk student population. The MenB outbreak at Providence College in 2015 was used as a case study to develop an Excel-based Meningococcal Outbreak Cost Calculator that uses target populations for mass vaccination to estimate the costs and resources associated with a meningococcal disease outbreak response. Resources include labor, medical supply, and other nonlabor costs (eg, vaccine-related adverse event costs) over an 18-month period following the outbreak declaration. Based on the actual Providence College population partially or fully vaccinated with MenB-FHbp (Trumenba®, Bivalent rLP2086) (3-dose schedule), the calculator estimated aggregate direct costs of $1,350,963 over 18 months post-outbreak for 4,418 individuals. For planned full vaccination of the enrolled undergraduate population (4,795 individuals), the tool estimated total costs of $1,798,399. In both cases, the majority of costs were for medical supplies (88%-89%) and contract services (7%-9%). This calculator can help to plan a mass vaccination campaign for MenB outbreak control, and underscores the need to vaccinate pre-emptively against diverse disease-causing strains before an outbreak occurs.