Abstract
OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of hepatitis C virus (HCV) screening strategies among recently arrived migrants in the Netherlands.
METHODS: A Markov model was used to estimate the health effects and costs of HCV screening from the healthcare perspective. A cohort of 50,000 recently arrived migrants was used. In this cohort, three HCV screening strategies were evaluated: (i) no screening, (ii) screening of migrants from HCV-endemic countries and (iii) screening of all migrants.
RESULTS: Strategy (ii) screening of migrants from HCV-endemic countries compared to strategy (i) no screening, yielded an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of €971 per quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) gained. Strategy (iii) screening of all migrants compared with strategy (ii) screening of migrants from HCV-endemic countries yielded an ICER of €1005 per QALY gained. The budget impact of strategy (ii) screening of migrants from HCV-endemic countries and strategy (iii) screening of all migrants was €13,752,039 and €20,786,683, respectively.
CONCLUSION: HCV screening is cost-effective. However, the budget impact may have a strong influence on decision making.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 6091 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-13 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue number | 17 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept-2020 |
Keywords
- Cost-Benefit Analysis
- Hepacivirus
- Hepatitis C/diagnosis
- Humans
- Markov Chains
- Mass Screening
- Netherlands
- Quality-Adjusted Life Years
- Transients and Migrants