Hemophilia: A High Cost Low Volume Disease: Suitable Preventive Strategies for Developing and Developed Countries

Hemophilia A & B are congenital bleeding disorders affecting 1:10-20,000 population and 1:20 to 40,000 population respectively. Hemophilia represents the prototype of high cost low volume disease. Eighty persons of world hemophilia population lives in financially poor developing countries, where <2% of GDP is usually spent for total health care. In India, with a population of more than 1 billion and growth rate of around 2% atleast 2000 new hemophilia patients are born every year . On a conservative estimate 50% of them have severe disease and with modern treatment, will require additional USD 36,000/year/patient i.e a 36 million dollar incremental additional health care burden each year to manage these 1000 severe hemophilia patient. Which is added to our existing pool of haemophiliacs, estimated at 1,00,000-