Estimating healthcare costs of acute gastroenteritis and human campylobacteriosis in Switzerland

Abstract

Rising numbers of campylobacteriosis case notifications in Switzerland resulted in an increased attention to acute gastroenteritis (AG) in general. Patients with a laboratory-confirmed Campylobacter infection perceive their disease as severe and around 15% of these patients are hospitalized. This study aimed at estimating healthcare costs due to AG and campylobacteriosis in Switzerland. We used official health statistics, data from different studies and expert opinion for estimating individual treatment costs for patients with different illness severity and for extrapolating overall costs due to AG and campylobacteriosis. We estimated that total Swiss healthcare costs resulting from these diseases amount to €29-45 million annually. Data suggest that patients with AG consulting a physician without a stool diagnostic test account for €9·0-24·2 million, patients with a negative stool test result for Campylobacter spp. for €12·3 million, patients testing positive for Campylobacter spp. for €1·8 million and hospitalized campylobacteriosis patients for €6·5 million/year. Healthcare costs of campylobacteriosis are high and most likely increasing in Switzerland considering that campylobacteriosis case notifications steadily increased in the past decade. Costs and potential cost savings for the healthcare system should be considered when designing sectorial and cross-sectorial interventions to reduce the burden of human campylobacteriosis in Switzerland.

Keywords: Acute gastroenteritis; Switzerland; campylobacteriosis; healthcare costs.

Fig. 1.

Overview of data sources used for (a) extrapolation of treatment costs and (b) for cost estimation for acute gastroenteritis and campylobacteriosis patients. ^a Qualitative study about case management of campylobacteriosis patients among 69 general practitioners in Switzerland (Supplementary material). ^b Study on acute gastroenteritis conducted within the Swiss Sentinel Surveillance Network ‘Sentinella’ (www.sentinella.ch) in 2014 (Supplementary material). ^c Study on laboratory positivity rates of Campylobacter, Salmonella and Shigella diagnostic tests in Switzerland (Supplementary material).

Fig. 2.

Number of hospitalizations due to ICD-10 code A04·5 ‘Campylobacter enteritis’ in Switzerland from 2004 to 2012 (, left axis, [31]), number of hospitalizations extrapolated from results of a case-control study in Switzerland [29] assuming hospitalization of 14·5% of cases registered in the National Notification System for Infectious Diseases (NNSID) (, left axis) and number of case notifications from the NNSID [1] (; right axis).