Direct costs of dengue hospitalization in Brazil: public and private health care systems and use of WHO guidelines.

BACKGROUND: Dengue, an arboviral disease, is a public health problem in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. In Brazil, epidemics have become increasingly important, with increases in the number of hospitalizations and the costs associated with the disease. This study aimed to describe the direct costs of hospitalized dengue cases, the financial impact of admissions and the use of blood products where current protocols for disease management were not followed. METHODS AND RESULTS: To analyze the direct costs of dengue illness and platelet transfusion in Brazil based on the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, we conducted a retrospective cross-sectional census study on hospitalized dengue patients in the public and private Brazilian health systems in Dourados City, Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil. The analysis involved cases that occurred from January through December during the 2010 outbreak. In total, we examined 8,226 mandatorily reported suspected dengue cases involving 507 hospitalized patients. The final sample comprised 288 laboratory-confirmed dengue patients, who accounted for 56.8% of all hospitalized cases. The overall cost of the hospitalized dengue cases was US $210,084.30, in 2010, which corresponded to 2.5% of the gross domestic product per capita in Dourados that year. In 35.2% of cases, blood products were used in patients who did not meet the blood transfusion criteria. The overall median hospitalization cost was higher (p = 0.002) in the group that received blood products (US $1,622.40) compared with the group that did not receive blood products (US $550.20). CONCLUSION: The comparative costs between the public and the private health systems show that both the hospitalization of and platelet transfusion in patients who do not meet the WHO and Brazilian dengue guidelines increase the direct costs, but not the quality, of health care.

Fighting misconceptions to improve compliance with influenza vaccination among health care workers: an educational project.

The compliance with influenza vaccination is poor among health care workers (HCWs) due to misconceptions about safety and effectiveness of influenza vaccine. We proposed an educational prospective study to demonstrate to HCWs that influenza vaccine is safe and that other respiratory viruses (RV) are the cause of respiratory symptoms in the months following influenza vaccination. 398 HCWs were surveyed for adverse events (AE) occurring within 48 h of vaccination. AE were reported by 30% of the HCWs. No severe AE was observed. A subset of 337 HCWs was followed up during four months, twice a week, for the detection of respiratory symptoms. RV was diagnosed by direct immunofluorescent assay (DFA) and real time PCR in symptomatic HCWs. Influenza A was detected in five episodes of respiratory symptoms (5.3%) and other RV in 26 (27.9%) episodes. The incidence density of influenza and other RV was 4.3 and 10.8 episodes per 100 HCW-month, respectively. The educational nature of the present study may persuade HCWs to develop a more positive attitude to influenza vaccination.