A new study has shown that TB is costing the European Union €5.9 billion per year, and that’s using conservative calculations. It’s estimated that actual costs could even be twice as high.
The study was led by University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel Germany, and involved a systematic review of literature and institutional websites. Researchers considered both direct costs , such as medication, hospitalisation and outpatient costs; along with indirect costs, such as loss of earnings. The study covered TB, MDR-TB (multi drug-resistant TB) and XDR- TB (extensively drug-resistant TB, resistant to a large number of drugs).
In Europe’s 18 wealthier countries, the average cost to treat someone with normal TB was estimated to be €7,848, while the cost to treat a case of MDR-TB came to €54,779 and an XDR-TB case at €168,310. This could mean TB places a massive burden on Europe’s healthcare costs in the future if these forms of the illness continue to increase as they have in recent years.
Read the abstract and access the full article at the European Respiratory Journal
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