Cost estimates of HIV care and treatment with and without anti-retroviral therapy at Arba Minch Hospital in southern Eth
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BioMed Central
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Cost estimates of HIV care and treatment with and without anti-retroviral therapy at Arba Minch Hospital in southern Ethiopia Asfaw Demissie Bikilla*†1,2, Degu Jerene†3, Bjarne Robberstad†1,4 and Bernt Lindtjorn†1 Address: 1Center for International Health, University of Bergen, PO Box 7804, 5020 Bergen, Norway, 2Faculty of Business and Economics, Hawassa University. PO Box 278, Hawassa, Ethiopia, 3Arbaminch Hospital, Arba Minch, Ethiopia and 4Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Email: Asfaw Demissie Bikilla* - [email protected]; Degu Jerene - [email protected]; Bjarne Robberstad - [email protected]; Bernt Lindtjorn - [email protected] * Corresponding author †Equal contributors
Published: 13 April 2009 Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2009, 7:6
doi:10.1186/1478-7547-7-6
Received: 17 September 2008 Accepted: 13 April 2009
This article is available from: http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/7/1/6 © 2009 Bikilla et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: Little is known about the costs of HIV care in Ethiopia. Objective: To estimate the average per person year (PPY) cost of care for HIV patients with and without anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in a district hospital. Methods: Data on costs and utilization of HIV-related services were taken from Arba Minch Hospital (AMH) in southern Ethiopia. Mean annual outpatient and inpatient costs and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. We adopted a district hospital perspective and focused on hospital costs. Findings: PPY average (95% CI) costs under ART were US$235.44 (US$218.11–252.78) and US$29.44 (US$24.30–34.58) for outpatient and inpatient care, respectively. Estimates for the nonART condition were US$38.12 (US$34.36–41.88) and US$80.88 (US$63.66–98.11) for outpatient and inpatient care, respectively. The major cost driver under the ART scheme was cost of ART drugs, whereas it was inpatient care and treatment in the non-ART scheme. Conclusion: The cost profile of ART at a district hospital level may be useful in the planning and budgeting of implementing ART programs in Ethiopia. Further studies that focus on patient costs are warranted to capture all patterns of service use and relevant costs. Economic evaluations combining cost estimates with clinical outcomes would be useful for ranking of ART services.
Background The prevalence of HIV in adults in Ethiopia is 2.1% according to 2007 estimates [1]. About 242,548 adults living with HIV/AIDS require anti-retroviral therapy (ART) [1]. Ethiopia launched a nationwide ART program in January 2005 [2] with a policy to implement treatment to rural settings through peripheral healthcare faciliti
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