Economic Burden of Respiratory Viruses in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC): A Scoping Literature Review.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study is to summarize the state of knowledge on the economic burden and cost of illness due to influenza, SARS-CoV-2, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and other respiratory viruses (ORV) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

METHODS

We performed a scoping review across three databases (PubMed-Medline, Scielo, and Embase) without time restriction, including economic burden and cost-of-illness studies. We extracted and analyzed data on publication year, population, study type, perspective, costing techniques, and settings. We reported absolute and relative frequencies to summarize the results. Economic burden estimates were divided by the gross domestic product (GDP) for each country. Costs were converted into 2022 international dollars (PPP).

RESULTS

Overall, 2638 articles were retrieved; we included 44 full texts from 16 LAC countries. Twenty-four (54.5%) studies focused on influenza, 16 (36.4%) on SARS-CoV-2, 3 (6.8%) on RSV, and 1 on ORV. Twenty two (50.0%) focused on cost-effectiveness (related to vaccination)/cost-benefit analysis, and 17 (38.6%) focused on cost of illness. Most studies (n = 33, 75.0%) were conducted from the third-party perspective. Fifty percent of the studies used a bottom-up costing technique and 29.6% top-down. Influenza direct medical costs ranged from I$6.6-I$300.3 for outpatients and I$62.8-I$222,920 for inpatients; for RSV from I$68.3-I$1292; and for SARS-CoV-2 between I$69.9 and I$38,039. The total annual costs of the influenza economic burden ranged between 0.0003% and 1.33% of the GDP.

CONCLUSION

This study showed variability in costing methods, perspectives, and types of studies among LAC countries. This variability underscores the need for standardized methodologies in future cost studies to ensure comparability and reliability of results.