Impact of public funding for rotavirus vaccines on pediatric emergencies and healthcare workload in a tertiary care hospital

Optional rotavirus vaccination was initiated in Japan in November 2011. From January 2014, Ube City initiated a subsidized vaccination program, until this ultimately became a nationwide practice in October 2020. We evaluated the impact of this municipal funding program on pediatric emergencies in Yamaguchi University Hospital, an advanced medical care institute. We compared the trends in hospitalization and after-hour emergency outpatient visits attributable to rotavirus gastroenteritis at the pediatric department of this institute from 2010 to 2020, encompassing periods both before and after the implementation of municipal funding. We further compared the incidence of rotavirus infection with that in neighboring areas, where such a subsidy was not provided. Following the introduction of public subsidies, significant reductions were observed in the number of hospitalizations for rotavirus gastroenteritis ( p = 0.0097) and after-hours visits at our department ( p = 0.013). Vaccination rates per year during the subsidization (2014–2020) ranged from 72.1 to 95.1 %. The number of sentinel reports of rotavirus infection in Ube Health Center area was much lower than non-subsidized adjacent areas (Shimonoseki [ p = 0.0070] and Yamaguchi [ p < 0.0001]). This municipal funding led to a change in rotavirus-related hospitalization and emergency visits to our hospital, which contributed to an appreciable reduction in medical expenses and physician workload.