Cost of Illness Due to Typhoid Fever in Pemba, Zanzibar, East Africa - Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition Vol.32 No.3

Today we are featuring "Cost of Illness Due to Typhoid Fever in Pemba, Zanzibar, East Africa" by Riewpaiboon et al in Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition vol.32 no.3.

Typhoid fever is still an ongoing economic burden within Pemba, Zanzibar, East Africa and the purpose of this study was to estimate said cost associated with this illness. The method used was an incidence-based cost-of-illness analysis from a societal perspective, paying close attention to new episodes of confirmed cases of typhoid fever in patients from inpatient and outpatient hospitals between May 2010 and December 2010. 

The overall cost associated with this illness was both the sum of direct costs and the costs of productivity, or in more fluid economic terms, the opportunity cost of the time lost. The sum of these costs, when broken down more specifically, looks like this: 

direct costs covered treatment, travel, and meals, whereas productivity costs were the loss of income of patients and caregivers. The analysis itself consisted of 17 episodes of confirmed cases with the mean age of the patients was 23 years (range= 5-65, median= 22). Thirty-five percent were inpatients, with a mean timespan of 4.75 days of hospital stay (range=3-7, median= 4.50). 

The results of the study may be surprising: the mean cost for treatment of typhoid fever was care was US$ 21.97 at 2010 prices (US$ 1=1,430.50 Tanzanian Shilling─TSH), with the average societal cost being that of $154.47 per episode. However, the most dramatic expenditure is the overall cost of lost wages of $128.02 (83%). These results help contribute to the economic evaluation of vaccination of typhoid fever in Zanzibar, as well as other sub-Saharan African regions.

For this article and others from this issue, click here.