The recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in 1995 that all children in the US be given the chickenpox vaccine seems to have paid off handsomely, a study indicates.

“The results show an annual savings of $100 million since the (chickenpox) vaccine was introduced, just in the cost of hospital care for people with severe cases,” lead author Dr. Matthew M. Davis, from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, said in a statement. “That’s greater than the savings predicted in the vaccine’s pre-approval analysis.”

The findings, which appear in the medical journal Pediatrics, are based on an analysis of chickenpox-related hospitalizations and costs from 1993 to 2001.

Prior to the AAP’s recommendation, the annual chickenpox-related hospitalization rate was more than 0.5 hospitalizations per 10,000 US population. By 1999, this rate was 0.26 per 10,000 and by 2000, the rate had halved again to just 0.13 per 10,000.

Although people of all ages experienced a drop in hospitalization rates, the effect was most pronounced for the primary target of the vaccine - children younger than 4 years of age.

As expected the reduction in hospitalization rates translated into a drop in hospital charges. In 1993, chickenpox-related hospital charges were $161.1 million, more than double the amount in 2001 - $66.3 million.

“These findings support the hypothesis that national (chickenpox) vaccination efforts are associated with decreased rates of severe…disease,” the investigators conclude.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, September 2004.