Economic burden manual

National governments require data on the economic burden of influenza disease in their countries in order to inform the allocation of limited resources and prioritization of interventions in the health sector. As recommended in the WHO guide for standardization of economic evaluations of immunization programmes [16, 17], evaluations should ideally adopt a societal perspective, including all relevant costs and consequences of delaying the decision. The economic burden of influenza encompasses multiple dimensions such as direct costs to the health service and households (e.g. hospitalization and outpatient care costs), indirect costs due to productivity losses, and broader detriments to the wider economy [18].

WHO’s Manual for estimating the economic burden associated with seasonal influenza outlines key conceptual frameworks, best-practice approaches and practical guidance to estimate the overall influenza economic burden. The manual’s Excel-based analysis tool can be used to generate disease-burden estimates guided by the step-by-step disease burden manual.