OBJECTIVES: Lower respiratory tract infections (LTRI) are the leading infectious cause of death worldwide. Only in 2015, they caused 2.74 million deaths and 103.0 million Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), with a major effect on children younger than 5 years. Mother’s milk contains structurally diverse oligosaccharides which have been reported to lower the incidence of LRTI in breastfed infants compared with those fed with infant formula. The aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of an infant formula supplemented with human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) in Mexico and China.

METHODS: A decision tree was built in TreeAge Pro. In both countries, the price of HMO-formula was compared to those of the regular commercially available infant formula. Quality of life was measured in Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALYs). Prevalences and costs of LRTI were extracted from publically available database and published literature. The HMO efficacy in reducing the prevalence of LRTI was taken from a clinical trial involving 175 infants carried out in Belgium and Italy. Sensitivity analyses were run to test the robustness of the results.

RESULTS: Despite the differences in prices and in the healthcare systems of China and Mexico, HMO enriched formula showed to be cost-effective in reducing the LRTI in infants up to 12 months of age. Sensitivity analyses showed the robustness of the results. These applied for both countries as the models were built using the same assumptions.

CONCLUSIONS: Even if with country-specific differences, this study showed that the HMO-supplemented infant formula was a cost-effective strategy to prevent LRTI and the consequent health and economic burden falling on both infants and their families.