Measles in the Southern Health Board--implications for resources.

Abstract

During a recent epidemic of measles in the Southern Health and Social Services Board in Northern Ireland it became apparent that the level of notifications of measles by general practitioners did not reflect the true incidence of the disease at that time. In trying to establish a more accurate measure of the incidence of measles it became clear that much money and manpower had been used to treat this outbreak. We tried to cost a defined period covering 1 January to 30 June 1983 to draw attention to the possible benefits of a more effective measles vaccination programme in preventing disease and saving resources. The implications of our present poor rate of vaccination were measured for hospital services, primary medical care services, and related consequences. The costs for the defined period were approximately pounds 175 931, and if the outcome had been worse in a few cases it might have been as high as pounds 1 375 931.

Systematic Review of Health Economic Analyses of Measles and Rubella Immunization Interventions

“…After our application of all of the exclusion criteria, we identified the 67 analyses summarized in Table that presented results of BCA ( n = 40), CEA ( n = 21), or both ( n = 6) for measles ( n = 45), rubella ( n = 11), or both ( n = 11), which included three analyses identified by references to sources in the gray literature cited by included papers. The first column in Table lists the first author, the publication year, and the citation(s), with multiple citations indicating that we identified more than one paper reporting the analytical results.…”

Economic evaluation of options for measles vaccination strategy in a hypothetical Western European country

“…4% in Torino, Italy [18], 2 . 4% in Northern Ireland [19] and 10 . 2% in an outbreak in Catalonia, Spain [15]) were markedly lower than those estimated for other industrialized countries (18-19 % in the United States [14,17], 14 % in New Zealand [20]).…”

“…Average direct disease costs were estimated from previous and ongoing European analyses on the costs of measles. The previous studies included overall (non-age specific) direct cost estimates of E145 per case <10 years in Spain (dating from 1981 to 1982) [21] and E111 per case in Northern Ireland (dating from 1983) [19]. Neither of the published cost estimates from the past includes the costs of long-term care for sequelae [from neurological disorders like encephalitis and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE)].…”