Hospitalization Costs Associated with Hepatitis A Outbreak Estimated at Over $300M

The average cost associated with hepatitis A hospitalization was more than $16,000 in 2017, according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An ongoing hepatitis A outbreak in the United States, which started in 2016, has resulted in >31,000 cases, with 61% of those requiring hospitalization.

In the United States in 2017, the average costs per hepatitis A–related hospitalization were $16,232, with a range of $12,921 to $19,680, depending on census division.

The researchers estimated that the reported >18,900 outbreak-associated hepatitis A hospitalizations have resulted in more than $306.8M in hospitalization costs as of February 7, 2020.

The researchers concluded that, “Given the high proportion of hospitalized patients during the ongoing hepatitis A outbreaks, we estimated the average hepatitis A–related hospitalization costs to highlight the preventable economic burden of these outbreaks on healthcare systems and state governments. Hepatitis A is a vaccine-preventable disease.”

Reference

Hofmeister MG, Yin S, Aslam MV, et al. Hepatitis A hospitalization costs, United States, 2017. Emerg Infect Dis. 2020;doi:10.3201/eid2605.191224.