Economic impact of community- and nosocomially acquired rotavirus gastroenteritis in Austria

Objective. To determine the average costs per child for rotavirus (RV) acute gastroenteritis from different perspectives, from the hospital's, third-party payer's, pediatrician's and family's perspectives as well as in summary from the societal one. Materials and methods. This cost-of-illness study is based on data collected alongside a g-month prospective, laboratory-confirmed epidemiologic study that evaluated the disease burden of RV infection in Austrian children less than or equal to 48 months of age. The study population at risk to contract a community- and nosocomially acquired acute gastroenteritis comprised 9687 children. All of the 51 children with community-acquired and 33 with nosocomially acquired RV acute gastroenteritis were included in this analysis. The annual costs were estimated by means of extrapolation. Results. For community-acquired RV acute gastroenteritis, the average costs from the hospital's perspective were EURO (EURO) 97,8, from the third party payer's perspective EURO 95.6, followed by EURO 29.9 and EURO 9.8 from the family's and pediatrician's perspectives, respectively. For nosocomially acquired RV acute gastroenteritis the average costs from the hospital's perspective were EURO 1494 and from the third party payer's and family's perspectives EURO 831 and EURO 116.8, respectively. In summary the average costs from the societal point of view for community-acquired RV acute gastroenteritis were EURO 250 and for nosocomial infections EURO 2442. After extrapolation the estimated total annual costs were EURO 7.17 million to EURO 0.97 million (13.6%) caused by community-acquired RV acute gastroenteritis and EURO 6.2 million (86.4%) caused by nosocomial RV acute gastroenteritis. Conclusion. This cost-of-illness study clearly demonstrates the great impact of RV acute gastroenteritis, mainly of nosocomially acquired infection, on medical health care costs in Austria. To cut costs efforts in disease prevention should be encouraged.