Costs of providing tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment services in Viet Nam

OBJECTIVE

To estimate the cost of providing tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis and treatment packages at different levels of health facilities in Viet Nam.

DESIGN

This was a retrospective costing study from the providers' perspective using a standard costing approach. We included typical services for TB diagnosis and treatment based on standard protocols.

RESULTS

The least expensive TB service was the 6-month isoniazid preventive therapy regimen for latent tuberculous infection provided by district health centres (US$7.20-14.30, accounting for 0.3-0.7% of Viet Nam's per capita gross domestic product [GDP] of US$2052.30 in 2014). The cost of diagnosing and treating a patient with drug-susceptible TB (the most common type of TB) ranged between US$51.20 and US$180.70, and represented 2.5-8.8% of Viet Nam's per capita GDP in 2014. The most expensive TB service was the diagnosis and treatment of a multidrug-resistant TB case (US$1568.20-2391.20), accounting for 76.4-116.5% of Viet Nam's per capita GDP in 2014).

CONCLUSION

The cost of TB diagnosis and treatment services in Viet Nam varied according to level of health facility, type of TB, different costing options, and different staff cost scenarios.

in children. Its results were drawn with limited sample size obtained after a short phase of data collection. A further study should be conducted to get more precise and valid results that may be useful for preventing UTI among children

This hospital-based case-control study was conducted from September 1998 to January 1999 in Metro Manila, Philippines. General objective of the study is to determine the association between selected hygiene behavior and urinary tract infection (UTI) among children aged 6-12 years. Specifically, the study is designed to examine the relationship between UTI and urination, defecation, washing and bathing habits. Twenty-three cases of children with UTI and an equal number of controls were recruited in four tertiary hospitals. The study association was determined by using odds ratio, the chi-square test and the Fisher exact test, where appropriate, in simple analysis. Furthermore, exact logistic regression analysis was applied to overcome the problem of small sample size. The data suggested that bathing habit less than daily, holding of urination during daytime, and washing habit after defecation might have risk effects on UTI. There was not enough evidence of significant association between UTI and other study exposures. Among extraneous variables, age group or school enrollment of children had a borderline significant association with UTI after adjusted simultaneously for selected variables. This study served as a pilot of the Preventive Nephrology Project (Department of Health, Philippines) in determining selected risk factors of