Economic burden of pneumococcal infections in children under 5 years of age

Ceyhan, Mehmet; Ozsurekci, Yasemin; Aykac, Kubra; Hacibedel, Basak; Ozbilgili, Egemen

According to the 2004 National Burden of Disease and Cost Effectiveness Project, 12 pneumococcal meningitis ranks fifth among the first 20 diseases causing death by 2.7% in 0-14 year age group in Turkey. The same report also stated that pneumonia is the second leading cause of mortality by 14% among lower respiratory tract infections. In addition to direct and indirect costs arising from the treatments of these diseases, years of life lost due to mortality also lead to a substantial burden on health-related economic outcomes. Although treatment of these diseases prevents an important portion of resulting mortality, the ratio of DALY caused by these diseases to overall DALY is 12.6 for 0-14 year age group. 12 In the light of these data, it is obvious that pneumococcal diseases lead to a substantial burden on health and economic systems of Turkey in terms of economic cost and morbidity as well as mortalityrelated costs. In the present study, among pneumococcal infections, the highest total cost was estimated for the treatment of pneumococcal meningitis by €4,060.38 per patient followed by pneumonia by €835.91 per patient and AOM by €117.32 per patient. There is a gap of economic burden studies in this area. In a study which evaluated the economic burden of childhood pneumococcal diseases in the Gambia, the median (interquartile range) total societal cost of inpatient pneumonia was US$87.0 (US$63.0-US$129.7) per patient. 13 In Korea, a nationally representative cross-sectional study evaluated the economic burden of otitis media in 2012 reported the total cost of otitis media in 0-9 year age group as 257.87 million Dollars in the outpatient setting. 14 Since there are differences in health policies as well as in national economies of the countries, these results are not comparable.