The Meningitis Foundation Adds Voice To Calls For Pharmac To Overhaul Its Approach To Funding Decisions

The Meningitis Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand has added its weight to calls for Pharmac to change the way it decides to fund drugs for people with chronic long-term diseases and vaccine-preventable diseases.

A new study commissioned by the Multiple Sclerosis Society of New Zealand (MSNZ), analysed the cost-effectiveness of Ocrelizumab, which received Pharmac funding as a treatment for primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) in New Zealand last yearsix years later than Australia.

It found that indirect costs for MSsuch as loss of labour and the impact on family members undertaking care dutiesaccount for more than half of the total cost to society for the disease, and that was currently not considered by Pharmac in their funding assessments.

Chair of the Meningitis Foundation, Gerard Rushton says he fully supports MSNZ and its call for Pharmac to adopt a new funding evaluation model that considers more than just the direct healthcare costs of both chronic and acute diseases.

“Meningitis has a high mortality and morbidity rate, and we have been lobbying for some time for holistic cost-of-care and social costs to be accounted for in Pharmac’s funding decisions.

“This vaccine-preventable disease has a high hospital dependency, with many patients needing specialist long-term care that increases the pressure on our already stretched health system,” he said.

Twenty people in New Zealand have died from Meningitis in the last five years.  So far this year, there have been 44 cases of meningococcal disease in New Zealand, including one fatality.

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Research from the Meningitis Centre Australia shows that one in every four people who contract meningococcal disease will end up with a permanent disability. In some cases, the total cost of care can reach over AUD 3 million per annum (NZD 3.3 million), meaning a cost to the New Zealand health system that could reach into the tens of millions for cases in 2024 alone.

"The Meningitis Foundation has placed multiple requests for cost-of-care information under the Official Information Act 1982, and the information we have received shows that New Zealand data is inaccurate and unreliable,” said Gerard Rushton.

The Foundation’s overarching goal is for meningococcal disease to be eliminated in New Zealand through the introduction of a universal vaccination programme for invasive meningococcal disease.

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