Rich countries benefitted more from COVID-19 vaccine's return on investment than poor ones: Study

New Delhi: A new research has uncovered significant disparities in the COVID-19 vaccine's return on investment across countries, with high-income countries benefitting more than low- and middle-income countries.

An economic value of about USD 60 to USD 809 was generated for every one dollar spent on COVID-19 vaccine development and distribution during the first year that vaccines were given, it estimated.

Using data from 173 countries, the researchers from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London and New York University compared costs of vaccine development, manufacturing, and delivery with health and economic measures related to the vaccine -- this included years of life gained, quality of life measures from avoiding hospitalisations and deaths, work productivity, and averted health care costs.


Overall COVID-19 vaccine development and delivery worldwide cost USD 79.4 billion, but the health and economic benefits of vaccination were valued between USD 6.43 trillion and USD 64.3 trillion, translating to a return on investment of USD 59.70 to USD 809 per dollar spent, the study published in the journal PLOS Medicine found.

Researchers found high-income countries gained the greatest economic benefits due to early access, higher uptake of vaccines, faster rollouts, and older populations who were at risk for severe outcomes.

Findings show many low- and middle-income countries did not have widespread access to the vaccine until late 2021, after many people had already contracted COVID-19 and developed some immunity, the researchers said.

Even then, low-income countries still had the highest averted health care and productivity costs relative to their own economies and populations, they showed.

"While developing and rolling out these vaccines at unprecedented speed required substantial upfront investment, the health and economic benefits far outweighed the costs within just one year," lead author Hallie Benjamin, student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said.

Vaccines were critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their development required extraordinary effort and spending among governments, pharmaceutical companies, and nonprofit organisations.

The resulting vaccines were studied to be highly effective at preventing severe illness and death.

"The lesson is there should be a way to get this vaccine to countries that need it faster. Because of the delays, it wasn't as useful to many of those countries as it could have been," author Mark Jit, professor at New York University's school of global public health, said.

"Our study provides evidence that the unprecedented, rapid investments made into COVID-19 vaccines early in the pandemic paid off massively both in health and economic benefits," he added.

Economic value of the vaccines has not been examined on a global scale, even as most analyses of the cost effectiveness of immunisation look at the cost of purchasing the vaccine itself from its manufacturer, not the development of it, the researchers said.

"Vaccine development, as well as equitable vaccine distribution globally, should be prioritised before and during global health crises," Jit said.

The author added that the COVID-19 vaccine was different from others as it was not purely a private sector decision -- the US, European Union, and other countries including China poured substantial funding into this to reduce the risk for vaccine companies.