PUBLIC DEBATE. It is time to consider to subsidize vaccinations against TBE, and the cost effectiveness of introducing TBE vaccine in the national vaccination program should be investigated. This is stated by several researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy and School of Business, Economics and Law in an article in Läkartidningen.
The article, published on August 1, was written by Professor Tomas Bergström and Associate Professor Peter Norberg, at the Department of Biomedicine, as well as by Daniel Slunge who is a PhD student at the Department of Economics at the School of Business, Economics and Law.
Although the number of new cases of TBE decreases in some years the trend over time is clearly rising, and a continuing expansion into new geographic areas in Sweden is well documented. More and more people will therefore live in risk areas that are now established in all three of our major urban areas.
You need to pay for the vaccine yourself
In Sweden, the TBE vaccine is recommended to residents in risk areas and to people who spend a lot of time in woods and fields in these areas, but the decision and the cost is taken by the individual him- or herself.
The authors Tomas Bergström, Peter Norberg and Daniel Slunge point to two recently published studies showing that the current Swedish vaccination strategy obviously has shortcomings, and they believe that the vaccination rate must increase to reduce the incidence. Both studies show that individual income has a significant impact on vaccination, and Daniel Slunge estimates that the vaccination rate of low-income people in TBE risk areas is as low as 15 percent, compared to 50 percent of high-income earners.The number of cases of TBE has now reached a level where it is time to consider the introduction of a subsidized vaccination, which has proved effective in several other countries, according to the researchers.
