Supplementary material is available online at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X21013104#s0090 .Background:
Rotavirus is a common cause of severe acute gastroenteritis among young children. Estimation of the economic burden would provide informed decision about investment on prevention strategies (e.g., vaccine and/or behavior change), which has been a potential policy discussion in Bangladesh for several years.
Methods:
We estimated the societal costs of children <5 years for hospitalization from rotavirus gastroenteritis (RVGE) and incidences of catastrophic health expenditure. A total of 360 children with stool specimens positive for rotavirus were included in this study from 6 tertiary hospitals (3 public and 3 private). We interviewed the caregiver of the patient and hospital staff to collect cost from patient and health facility perspectives. We estimated the economic cost considering 2015 as the reference year.
Results:
The total societal per-patient costs to treat RVGE in the public hospital were 126 USD (95% CI: 116–136) and total household costs were 161 USD (95% CI: 145–177) in private facilities. Direct costs constituted 38.1% of total household costs. The out-of-pocket payments for RVGE hospitalization was 23% of monthly income and 76% of households faced catastrophic healthcare expenditures due to this expense. The estimated total annual household treatment cost for the country was 10 million USD.
Conclusions:
A substantial economic burden of RVGE in Bangladesh was observed in this study. Any prevention of RVGE through cost-effective vaccination or/and behavioural change would contribute to substantial economic benefits to Bangladesh.The economic burden study is part of the hospital-based rotavirus surveillance system supported by the USAID-Bangladesh, U.S. Agency for International Development, under the terms of an Interagency Agreement with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); grant number: 1U51GH001209
