OBJECTIVES: In Rwanda, malaria affects one out of six children younger than 5 years of age. Despite being preventable and treatable, malaria is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality and imposes a heavy economic burden on the government of Rwanda and donors. Recently, the WHO agreed to consider the new malaria vaccine, RTS,S as an additional prevention strategy. We developed a budget impact model to estimate the consequence of introduction of this vaccine into the Global fund budget for malaria prevention in Rwanda

METHODS: A static budget impact model was developed to assess the financial consequences after introduction of RTS,S to the existing prevention strategies. The model was developed based on clinical and epidemiological data from the literature. Cost of treatment and prevention for the first year (without vaccine), was estimated and compared to the total cost after fifth the year (with the vaccine). A one-way sensitivity analysis was done to evaluate the robustness of the model.

RESULTS: For the 283,931 children younger than 5 years at risk of malaria infection in Rwanda every year, the total cost of prevention for first year (without vaccine) was $3,117,663.70 while the total cost at fifth year (with the vaccine) was $4,916,360.17.

The corresponding cost of treating un-prevented malaria for the first year was $1,941,408.46 while the cost at the fifth year is $1,085,914.07. The total number of treatments avoided increased from 10,095 children after introduction of vaccine to 30,286 children in fifth year.

CONCLUSIONS: The introduction of Malaria vaccine for children younger than 5 years by Global fund in Rwanda may be affordable when compared to the amount money spent on treatment.