The High Cost of Recovering From an A(H7N9) Infection
Influenza A(H7N9) has infected more than 130 people in the People’s Republic of China. It is a severe disease; more than 40 individuals have died. Those individuals that do survive often require long hospital stays including many days in an intensive care unit (ICU). Hospitalization in ICUs is expensive. For example, the first A(H7N9) case from Guangdong Province, spent 20 days in ICU, with the hospital costs totaling about 220,000 yuan [1]. In China, the average annual wage is 42,000 yuan.[2] Putting the hospitalization cost for A(H7N9) for this patient in perspective, it would take an average individual in China more than five years to pay off this cost providing 100% of the salary went to pay the hospital bill. This individual is not an isolated case. Based on limited publicly available data, 28 of the individuals infected with A(H7N9) from China who recovered were hospitalized between 6-30+ days, with a median hospital stay of 18 days, although not all of them were treat...