%0 Journal Article
%T Burden of paediatric Rotavirus Gastroenteritis (RVGE) and potential benefits of a universal Rotavirus vaccination programme with a pentavalent vaccine in Spain
%A Javier Diez-Domingo
%A Nuria Suri£¿ach
%A Natalia Alcalde
%A Lourdes Beteg¨®n
%A Nathalie Largeron
%A M¨¦lanie Trichard
%J BMC Public Health
%D 2010
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2458-10-469
%X A birth cohort was followed up to the age of 5 using a cohort model. Epidemiological parameters were taken from the REVEAL study (a prospective epidemiological study conducted in Spain, 2004-2005) and from the literature. Direct and indirect costs were assessed from the national healthcare payer and societal perspectives by combining health care resource utilisation collected in REVEAL study and unit costs from official sources. RotaTeq per protocol efficacy data was taken from a large worldwide rotavirus clinical trial (70,000 children). Health outcomes included home care cases, General Practioner (GP)/Paediatrician, emergency department visits, hospitalisations and nosocomial infections.The model estimates that the introduction of a universal rotavirus vaccination programme with RotaTeq (90% coverage rate) would reduce the rotavirus gastroenteritis (RVGE) burden by 75% in Spain; 53,692 home care cases, 35,187 GP/Paediatrician visits, 34,287 emergency department visits, 10,987 hospitalisations and 2,053 nosocomial infections would be avoided. The introduction of RotaTeq would avoid about 76% of RVGE-related costs from both perspectives: ?22 million from the national health system perspective and ?38 million from the societal perspective.A rotavirus vaccination programme with RotaTeq would reduce significantly the important medical and economic burden of RVGE in Spain.Acute Gastroenteritis (AGE) is a common disease among children in both developed and developing countries, with rotavirus as the principal etiologic agent[1,2]. As it is a highly contagious virus, almost all children will suffer from paediatric rotavirus gastroenteritis (RVGE) before 5 years of age[3]. Verstraeten et al[4] estimated that 4.5 million episodes of RVGE occur each year in the European Union among children up to 5 years old. The classical symptoms of the disease are diarrhoea, vomiting and fever[5].Although death due to RVGE is rare in developed countries, there is an important morbidity re
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/469