A numerical evaluation of the economic tradeoff of vaccination against chikungunya virus in Brazil

Abstract

This article uses a compartmental model describing the dynamic of the chikungunya virus in populations of humans and mosquitoes with parameters fitted to the incidence in Brazil to estimate the economic trade-off of vaccination against the virus infection. The model uses time-dependent parameters to incorporate fluctuations in the transmission and the mosquito population across the years. Using the model predictions of symptomatic infections and literature data concerning the proportions of post-acute and chronic cases, the vaccination cost is compared with the disease cost. Numerical results considering different scenarios indicate that vaccination has a limited impact on reducing the disease cost assuming that vaccination is applied uniformly countrywide. We do not consider regional targets. In some scenarios, vaccinating about 10$\text{\%}$ of the population as early as possible can reduce the disease cost and is more economically efficient. Larger proportions make vaccination not viable.