Objective: To learn the compliance status regarding completing full rabies vaccination schedule, and to analyse the economic cost.
Methods: Interviewing patients who visited doctor at Emergency Department, the People's Hospital, Beijing University from June 2007 to January 2009 on vaccination compliance of Essen regimens. The economic cost of Essen regimen and Zagreb regimen were estimated using average vaccination cost, average release amount by National Institue for Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products.
Results: In total, 3440 patients were interviewed. The proportion completing full vaccine schedule was 33.3%, 77.1% and 78.0% for exposure category I, II and III respectively. The compliance was high for first 3 doses, it reduced significantly after the third dose. The individual medical costs was 694 RMB for Essen regimen, and 482.2 RMB for Zagreb regimen. The estimated annual medical costs was 9.709 billion RMB for Essen regimen, and 6.746 billion RMB for Zagreb regimen nationaly.
Conclusions: The Zagreb regimen should be recommended in order to simplify the vaccine administration, to increase compliance and to reduce rabies vaccination cost.