The covid-19 vaccines were costly to produce, but paid for themselves many times overPaul Christian Gordon / Alamy

The covid-19 vaccines may have provided health and economic benefits worth up to $64.3 trillion in the first year alone – almost double an earlier estimate. Previously, researchers calculated that the $79.4 billion invested in developing covid-19 vaccines saw a return of between $4.8 trillion and $37.9 trillion globally in the first 12 months after their rollout. But now, a reanalysis of the data suggests it is actually between $6.43 trillion and $64.3 trillion.

This means that for every $1 spent on the vaccines’ development, between $59.70 and $809 was gained in that year. “It is great to finally see this research published to demonstrate the enormous health and financial benefits gained from covid-19 vaccines, in comparison to the costs that went into their development and delivery,” says Hallie Benjamin at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

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The $6.43 trillion figure is based on a cost-effectiveness analysis that is generally used in the health sector and factors in quality of life, while the $64.3 trillion figure is based on a cost-benefit analysis used in the public sector.

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Both include data from 173 countries on averted hospitalisations, productivity losses and lives saved. For instance, one of the estimates Benjamin and her colleagues used came from modelling that suggested the vaccines prevented 14 million to 20 million deaths in their first year.

The initial $4.8 trillion and $37.9 trillion figures were released when the research was in a preprint stage, before it had been peer-reviewed. “We made many changes throughout the peer-review process that strengthened the quality of our findings,” says Benjamin.

The researchers originally used the Value of Statistical Life Years, which considers how many years a person would be likely to live because of the vaccine, a figure that would be lower if someone was older. As part of the peer-review process, they were advised to use the Value of Statistical Life. Team member Mark Jit at New York University says this treats life spans more equally and is aligned with recommendations for valuing mortality-risk reductions.

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The cost-benefit analysis figure also increased significantly due to a change from calculating the economic value of avoiding a death, says Jit.

But the returns weren’t equally distributed. The researchers found that the vaccines had the highest returns in richer countries. This was probably because poorer countries accessed them later, so fewer lives were saved and fewer productivity and healthcare costs were averted, says Jit. The results are “a message about the need for being able to distribute the vaccines fairly to the people most in need around the world”, he says.

Covid raises risk of heart issues in children more than vaccination

Getting covid-19 for the first time slightly increased the risk of heart inflammation, blood clots and bleeding disorders among children, whereas being vaccinated against the virus was much safer and sometimes protective

Richard Carpiano at the University of California, Riverside, says we already knew the covid-19 vaccines were a “life-saving success”, but this study reinforces that “protecting the public’s health is protecting the economy”.

This challenges the “black-and-white” thinking during the covid-19 pandemic on the trade-off between protecting public health through lockdowns and protecting the economy, says Carpiano.

He also hopes these understandings will be used for future infectious outbreaks, or pandemics. “We are in a historical period that has been labelled as ‘a new pandemic age’,” says Carpiano. “The probability of another pandemic in the next 10 years is significant, as are the chances of smaller regional disease outbreaks from existing or new pathogens.” This analysis is “fundamental” to informing policy-making decisions, he says.

Journal Reference:

PLOS Medicine DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004772