OBJECTIVES: Country experts’ opinions have a huge impact on the identification of the strategy of the health economics analysis, which is crucial before the introduction of any intervention. The determination of a unique strategy seems to be very challenging in a large area country where the epidemiology differs a lot and the disease does not have a huge burden but leads to the severe sequelae. The objective of the study is to determine the importance of the introduction of the vaccination against meningococcal infection into the National Immunization Program (NIP) in Russia

METHODS:

RESULTS: The opinions of 18 experts on the importance of the meningococcal vaccination were diverse and distributed between not needed (3 experts) to most needed (2 experts). More than a half of experts (55.6%) opted for the introduction of two vaccines (conjugated-ACWY, recombinant MenB vaccine) simultaneously. Although the majority believes in 10-13 years of age (55.6%) as the most suitable time period for immunization, others consider that the vaccination should be implemented for younger or older children first.

CONCLUSIONS: There is no unanimous opinion on the universal strategy of meningococcal vaccination implementation into the Russian NIP. A few regions with high demand should be selected for a pilot project where health economics analysis should be conducted and further the vaccine introduced prior to the national implementation.