TY - JOUR KW - Nigeria KW - leprosy KW - Full text online KW - Case detection AU - Ezenduka C AU - Post E AU - John S AU - Suraj A AU - Namadi A AU - Onwujekwe O AB -

Reported increases in child proportions and disability grade 2 cases in Nigeria suggest that leprosy disease is still spreading in the country. This indicates the need to review case finding strategies to improve case detection for effective control of the disease. It was necessary that available methods be assessed for their value for money in view of limited resources. We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of three available leprosy case detection methods using data available from 2005 to 2011. We explored data to determine which strategy when implemented in addition to routine practice would detect most additional leprosy cases at a given cost (measured in U.S. dollars). Hence, cost-effectiveness was expressed as incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Our findings show that at the rate of $142 per additional case detected, the household contact examination was the most costeffective strategy for detecting additional leprosy cases when implemented to complement routine practice.

BT - PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases CN - EZENDUKA 2012 DA - 09/2012 DO - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0001818 IS - 9 J2 - PLoS Negl Trop Dis LA - eng M1 - 9 N2 -

Reported increases in child proportions and disability grade 2 cases in Nigeria suggest that leprosy disease is still spreading in the country. This indicates the need to review case finding strategies to improve case detection for effective control of the disease. It was necessary that available methods be assessed for their value for money in view of limited resources. We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of three available leprosy case detection methods using data available from 2005 to 2011. We explored data to determine which strategy when implemented in addition to routine practice would detect most additional leprosy cases at a given cost (measured in U.S. dollars). Hence, cost-effectiveness was expressed as incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Our findings show that at the rate of $142 per additional case detected, the household contact examination was the most costeffective strategy for detecting additional leprosy cases when implemented to complement routine practice.

PB - Public Library of Science PY - 2012 EP - e1818 T2 - PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases TI - Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Three Leprosy Case Detection Methods in Northern Nigeria UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447964/pdf/pntd.0001818.pdf VL - 6 ER -