Costing of antiretroviral treatment in Mbagathi District Hospital, Kenya

Abstract

Kenya has made positive progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goals and Vision 2030 ; however , HIV and AIDS remains a major challenge, causing premature mortality and morbidity and unless its impacts are controlled the country may not achieve its development goals. Antiretroviral therapy is one of the response mechanisms that are bei ng imp lemented globally to mitigate the impact of HIV. The objectives of this study was to estimate the unit costs of labour, l aboratory and imaging ser vices, average cost per inpatient day and the average cost of outpatient visit per quarter in Mbagathi Dist ric t Hospital. The cost and health service utilization data was collected retrospectively for a period of 24 months from the ele ctronic medical records a nd patient charts of 351 HIV - positive adults who were enrolled on ART treatment in Mbagathi. Using micro - c osting and gross - costing methods, we estimated the economic cost of the comprehensive HIV treatment. The average cost of outpatient visit per quarter was estimated to be Ksh9,044 (USD120.83)during the three months of treatment debut. This dec reased over th e two years of follow - up to Ksh5,818 (USD77.73) while the average cost per outpatient visit stood at Ksh2,001 (USD26.73). The average outpatient cost per annum was Ksh26,040 (USD347.90)and Ksh20,506 (USD273.96) in the first a nd the second year of treatmen t, respectively. The average cost of treatment per inpatient day was Ksh1,691 (USD22.59). The averag e labour cost per outpatient visit was Ksh465 (USD6.21) while that of inpatient per day was Ksh575 (USD7.68). Generall y, ART accounted for the highest propo rtion of costs followed by the labour and laboratory test. The study provides new and relevant information in terms of the unit costs of inpatient and outpatient care, labour, laboratory and imaging