Lowering the recommended age for the free and active offer of influenza vaccination in Italy: clinical and economic impact analysis in the Liguria region

OBJECTIVE: we estimated the epidemiological and budget impact of lowering the recommended age for influenza immunization with quadrivalent vaccine actively offered and administered free of charge to persons over 50 years old by public immunization services. METHODS: a multi-cohort, deterministic, static Markov model was populated by real-world data on the clinical and economic impact of Influenza-Like Illness and Lower Respiratory Tract Infection over 1 year. Four scenarios featuring different vaccine coverage rates were compared with the base case; coverage rates in subjects with and without risk factors were considered separately. RESULTS: compared with the base case, adopting scenarios 1–4 would reduce the annual number of influenza cases by 6.5%, 10.8%, 13.8% and 3.4%, Emergency Department accesses by 10.7%, 9.1%, 15.4% and 4.6%, complications by 8.9%, 9.9%, 14.7% and 4.1%, and the hospitalization of complicated cases by 11%, 9.1%, 15.4% and 4.5%, respectively. The four scenarios would require an additional investment (vaccine purchase and administration) of €316,996, €529,174, €677,539, and €168,633, respectively, in comparison with the base case. Scenario 1 proved to be cost-saving in the 60–64-year age-group. The incremental costs of implementing the other hypothetical scenarios ranged from 2.7% (scenario 4) to 13.2% (scenario 3). CONCLUSIONS: lowering the recommended age for influenza vaccination to 60 years would allow a high proportion of subjects at risk for severe influenza to be reached and would save money.