Cost burden of Infant malaria treatment on households and health institutions in the Upper East Region

Abstract

This study estimates the economic cost burden of infant malaria treatment on households and institutions in the Upper East Region of Ghana. This study uses two methods to determine the costs of treatment of infant malaria. First, it uses institutional costing in order to represent overheads directly attributable to hospital service for cases of infant malaria. Second, it uses household costing of malaria treatment for infants in order to represent the sum of all out-of-pocket expenses made by the caregiver, plus the costs representing loss of potential household productivity. The data collected consist of a cross sectional observations in the years 2006 and 2007 on the health facilities as well as the caregivers health-seeking itinerary in the Upper East Region. A total unit cost of complicated malaria management is $46.62 out of which, 44.4% is attributed to service cost in the health institutions and 11% to drugs In Ghana, the health institution’s unit cost per complicated malaria case is $74.32 and that per simple case is $3.83. The cost of treatment for complicated malaria case is roughly 90% of monthly household income. The cost of treatment for simple cases averaged $10.20, or about 20% of monthly household income. With this fair knowledge on the cost burden of infant malaria treatment on households and institutions, policy makers, stakeholders and development partners are urged to devote much attention and resources to the control of this dreadful disease especially in the areas of ensuring an effective and efficient National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), enforcing the malaria control initiatives such as Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN), Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS), public health education and Intermitted Preventive Treatment in Infants (IPTi) which has now been recommended by WHO. 1University of