The costs of schistosomiasis control in a Sahelian country.

The cost of schistosomiasis control in Mali was calculated on the assumption that the programme is fully nationalized and organized using the experience gained during the past seven years. In order to expand the model and to extrapolate from actual cost that arose, activities have been standardized into preparatory, baseline and follow-up sample surveys for monitoring purposes and into blanket and case mass chemotherapy for interventions. Health education is contained in them as a component, sanitation is seen as a standard item linked at a fixed cost to the duration of the intervention phase. These activities were divided into months of action and their unit cost was calculated on the basis of requirements of field allowances, transport, drugs, expendable materials, and equipment. Fixed operational costs were calculated on a yearly basis for salaries, data processing and administrative overheads. Using these unit costs, and on the basis of present knowledge of the prevalence, epidemiology and efficiency of control, the need and quantity of activities and the probable duration of a programme to achieve the goals set in the national health plan were estimated. If a population of 180,000 persons in about 300 villages is to be included in a programme that has as target to diminish the prevalence of both, Schistosoma haematobium and S. mansoni to less than 20% and that plans to diminish the prevalence of intensive infections of both parasites to less than 5%, a total amount of DM 6.9 to 7.5 million over a period of seven to nine years are required.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)