Anthropometrically derived dosing and drug costing calculations for treating visceral leishmaniasis in Bihar, India.

OBJECTIVE AND METHOD: To estimate drug costs of treating visceral leishmaniasis (VL) based on data on the VL population structure from the high-burden, antimony-resistant area of Northern Bihar, India.

RESULTS

Paromomycin is the cheapest option ($7450 to treat 1000 patients). Treating 1000 patients with oral miltefosine would cost $119,250 at the current private market price or $64,383-$75,129 at preferential public sector price depending on the size of the order. With AmBisome it would be $163,600 or $229,500 depending on the dose (10 or 15 mg/kg total). These costs are without considering other direct costs (daily intramuscular injections for 3 weeks for paromomycin; intravenous devices and hospitalization for AmBisome; directly observed treatment if applied for miltefosine) and indirect costs.

CONCLUSION

These calculations provide useful basic information for projections.