Clinical Infectious Diseases published an article on a review of measles outbreak cost estimates from the U.S. in the post-elimination era (2004-2017). The abstract is included below.
Despite the elimination of measles in the U.S. in the year 2000, cases continue to occur with measles outbreaks having occurred in various jurisdictions in the U.S. in 2018 and 2019. Understanding the cost associated to measles outbreaks can inform cost-of-illness and cost-effectiveness studies of measles and measles prevention. We performed a literature review and identified 10 published studies from 2001–2018 that presented cost estimates from 11 measles outbreaks. Median total costs per measles outbreak were $152,308 (range, $9,862–$1,063,936); median cost per case was $32,805 (range, $7,396–$76,154) and median cost per contact was $223 (range, $81–$746). There was limited data on direct and indirect costs associated with measles. These findings highlight how costly measles outbreaks can be, the value of this information for public health department budgeting, and the importance of more broadly documenting the cost of measles outbreaks.
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