Campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis in Sweden - an estimation of direct and indirect costs

This report is part of a project that aims at exploring whether the current allocation of resources for fighting the two illnesses campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis can be regarded as economically efficient in Sweden. When resources are allocated towards reducing a specific illness both costs (more administration, control etc. needed) and benefits (a reduction of the number of cases) emerge. Analysing the efficiency of an allocation comes down to calculating and comparing all costs and benefits to which the specific allocation can be associated. In this report the cost-of-illness method is applied to calculate direct costs (for example medication, transport and health care) and indirect costs (productivity losses due to illness or premature death) for the current number of cases of the two illnesses in Sweden. These are the case-related costs which are reduced when more resources are spent to fight an illness. They are therefore part of the benefits analysis of the project. The report shows that campylobacteriosis is currently more than four times more common than salmonellosis in Sweden with approximately 80 000 cases each year. The direct and indirect costs for these cases are SEK 330 million. The number of salmonellosis cases is about 17 000 each year, with direct and indirect costs amounting to SEK 80 million. About 60 percent of the total costs (for both illnesses) are associated with productivity losses arising as employees are at home because of their own illness