Financial and economic costs of scaling up the provision of HAART to HIV-infected health care workers in KwaZulu-Natal.

OBJECTIVES To provide new information on the financial and economic costs of providing highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to health care workers in public-sector hospital settings in KwaZulu-Natal. DESIGN An Excel model was used to estimate the cost of providing HAART to health care workers at two state-subsidised hospitals in Durban. Staff members were interviewed and protocols reviewed to identify the time and resources used to provide HAART to health care workers. The cost of the programme was estimated for various patient numbers. RESULTS The financial cost of treating a patient for a year ranged from R5697 to R8762 depending on the hospital and the number of patients treated. The economic cost of treating a patient for a year ranged from R6123 to R8893. These costs were shown to be robust to changes in key variables. CONCLUSIONS This study provides evidence on the cost of providing HAART to health care workers and suggests that this strategy could reduce absenteeism and alleviate future staff shortages at moderate cost to hospitals. This is crucial, given the impending human resources crisis in health care in South Africa and the growing burden of HIV/AIDS. These cost estimates should be good indicators of the costs of extending antiretroviral therapy to health care workers in public-sector hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal.