Swine flu led to huge financial burden on patients: Study

The outbreak of H1N1 in India in the opening months of the year had a huge socio-economic impact with the expenditure incurred by patients on their treatment being 17 to 62 times of India's monthly per capita income, according to a study.
The study was carried out on 209 hospitalised swine flu patients from January 1 to March 31, 2015.
The H1N1 influenza outbreak caused various problems with huge financial burden on individuals as well as insurance providers, the study found.
"The recent outbreak of H1N1 affected healthy adults besides patients with high risk factors thus causing panic among large sections of the population. It led to substantial health burden and had huge implications ranging from closure of schools to low productivity," said the study carried out by Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH).

The expenditure incurred by patients on their treatment was 17 to 62 times of India's monthly per capita income, the study said.
"Our study found that minimum expenditure for admitted patients of H1N1 patient was Rs 10,004 and maximum was Rs 19,85,428. Mean expenditure in isolation ward was Rs 1,25,429, single isolated room was Rs 1,62,320 and in ICU it was Rs 4,57,447. The expenditure increased with increase in age. Hospital expenses in specially created Isolation Ward was much lower than Isolated Single Rooms," Dr Atul Gogia said.

The doctors said that this is the first report to give fair information on the economic impact of H1N1 influenza.

However, the actual economic burden of H1N1 could be much higher as the study could not take into account absenteeism from work or school and decrease in production and tourism.
Dr Atul Kakar, author of the study and senior consultant at SGRH said preventive measures with vaccination before the start of epidemic would help drastically reduce the cost of hospitalisation and socio-economic burden on the patient.