UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Health and economic impacts of Lassa vaccination campaigns in West Africa

Smith, David RM; Turner, Joanne; Fahr, Patrick; Attfield, Lauren A; Bessell, Paul R; Donnelly, Christl A; Gibb, Rory; ... Hollingsworth, T Deirdre; + view all (2024) Health and economic impacts of Lassa vaccination campaigns in West Africa. Nature Medicine , 30 (12) pp. 3568-3577. 10.1038/s41591-024-03232-y. Green open access

[thumbnail of s41591-024-03232-y.pdf]
Preview
Text
s41591-024-03232-y.pdf - Published Version

Download (11MB) | Preview

Abstract

Lassa fever is a zoonotic disease identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as having pandemic potential. This study estimates the health-economic burden of Lassa fever throughout West Africa and projects impacts of a series of vaccination campaigns. We also model the emergence of ‘Lassa-X’—a hypothetical pandemic Lassa virus variant—and project impacts of achieving 100 Days Mission vaccination targets. Our model predicted 2.7 million (95% uncertainty interval: 2.1–3.4 million) Lassa virus infections annually, resulting over 10 years in 2.0 million (793,800–3.9 million) disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). The most effective vaccination strategy was a population-wide preventive campaign primarily targeting WHO-classified ‘endemic’ districts. Under conservative vaccine efficacy assumptions, this campaign averted $20.1 million ($8.2–$39.0 million) in lost DALY value and $128.2 million ($67.2–$231.9 million) in societal costs (2021 international dollars ($)). Reactive vaccination in response to local outbreaks averted just one-tenth the health-economic burden of preventive campaigns. In the event of Lassa-X emerging, spreading throughout West Africa and causing approximately 1.2 million DALYs within 2 years, 100 Days Mission vaccination averted 22% of DALYs given a vaccine 70% effective against disease and 74% of DALYs given a vaccine 70% effective against both infection and disease. These findings suggest how vaccination could alleviate Lassa fever’s burden and assist in pandemic preparedness.

Type: Article
Title: Health and economic impacts of Lassa vaccination campaigns in West Africa
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41591-024-03232-y
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03232-y
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Epidemiology, Health care economics, Outcomes research, Viral infection
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10202761
Downloads since deposit
1Download
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item