Description
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES:
A safe, effective and affordable malaria vaccine would create a powerful public health benefit by closing the gap left by other interventions. However, how much are people or households ready to spend for the malaria vaccine? What factors influence the willingness to pay (WTP) for the malaria vaccine? Through a systematic survey of the literature, we sought to analyze the supporting evidence for these questions.
STUDY DESIGN:
A systematic search was conducted in August, 2023 to identify studies relevant for this review. The search was executed on PubMed, Cochrane library, Web of Science, and Scopus. To ensure exhaustiveness, supplementary searches were performed on Google scholar. A manual examination of reference lists from eligible articles was also conducted to ensure the inclusion of all relevant studies. The search strategy focused exclusively on “malaria”, “vaccine” and “willingness to pay (WTP)”. Free text and controlled vocabulary were blended to ensure comprehensive coverage of relevant studies. The search was limited to studies published in English language between 2005 to 2023.
STUDY POPULATION:
Included studies were studies of adults and caregivers of children under five (5) living in Africa.
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:
Seven studies from six countries were included in the final analysis. Included studies were household surveys of adults and/or caregivers of children under the age of five (5), published between the year 2005 and 2021. The reported sample sizes in included studies range from 20 (Ghana) to 2,390 (Burkina Faso). Across studies, the proportion of the population willing to pay for the malaria vaccine was low, reaching as low as 1.34% in Cameroon. The mean amount respondents were WTP per dose of malaria vaccine differed across studies and mostly depended on the type of vaccine. The average amount respondents were willing to pay for themselves or their under five child ranged from 1.02USD in Ghana to 26.9USD in Ethiopia. The odds of WTP were higher among men, younger people, urban dwellers, those with a higher level of education, those whose children had a recent episode of malaria, and those with high income levels. The odds of WTP were also higher when respondents had the ability to pay for it, or when the vaccine was relatively cheap.
CONCLUSION:
The WTP for the malaria vaccine in Africa is low, and is dependent on factors such as gender, age and level of education amongst other factors.
IMPLICATION FOR POLICY:
Malaria vaccination programmes in African countries will achieve greater impact when they do not incur significant costs on the individuals and their families.
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