A decision support tool for risk–benefit analysis of Japanese encephalitis vaccine in travellers

Abstract

Background During pre-travel consultations, clinicians and travellers face the challenge of weighing the risks versus benefits of Japanese encephalitis (JE) vaccination due to the high cost of the vaccine, relative low incidence in travellers (~1 in one million), but potentially severe consequences (~30% case-fatality rate). Personalised JE risk assessment based on the travellers’ demographics and travel itinerary is challenging using standard risk matrices. Therefore, we developed an interactive digital tool to estimate risks of JE infection and severe health outcomes under different scenarios to facilitate shared decision making between clinicians and travellers. Methods A Bayesian network (conditional probability) model risk–benefit analysis of JE vaccine in travellers was developed. The model considers travellers’ characteristics (age, sex, comorbidities), itinerary (destination, departure date, duration, setting of planned activities), and vaccination status to estimate the risks of JE infection, development of symptomatic disease (meningitis, encephalitis), clinical outcomes (hospital admission, chronic neurological complications, death), and adverse events following immunisation. Results In low-risk travellers (e.g. to urban areas for < 1 month), the risk of developing JE and dying is low (<1 per million) irrespective of the destination; thus, the potential impact of JE vaccination in reducing the risk of clinical outcomes is limited. In high-risk travellers (e.g. to rural areas in high JE incidence destination for > 2 months), risk of developing symptomatic disease and mortality is estimated as 9.5 and 1.4 per million, respectively. JE vaccination in this group would significantly reduce the risk of symptomatic disease and mortality (by ~ 80%) to 1.9 and 0.3 per million, respectively. Conclusion The JE tool may assist decision-making by travellers and clinicians and could increase JE vaccine uptake. The tool will be updated as additional evidence becomes available. Future work needs to evaluate the usability of the tool. The interactive, scenario-based, personalised JE vaccine risk–benefit tool is freely available on www.VaxiCal.com.