Hospital infections cost Africa $8.4bn every year, study shows

Treating infections acquired in hospitals and clinics is costing sub-Saharan Africa as much as $8.4 billion a year and hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, according to research by WaterAid and the World Bank.

At least half of these could be averted by improved handwashing facilities, clean water and decent toilets, the organizations said. The highest rates of contamination were found in intensive care units, neonatal wards and pediatric departments.

Infections picked up in health care facilities, including diseases such as sepsis and pneumonia, cost African countries an average 1.1% of gross domestic product and 4.5% of their health budgets, their data show.

“This is a cost that will only increase as a greater share of these infections become resistant to antibiotics,” WaterAid said in a statement. “Antibiotic resistance is a growing global health emergency, contributing to nearly five million deaths every year.”

Malawi was the hardest hit, with the southeastern African nation spending 2.9% of its gross domestic product and 10.9% of the annual health budget treating such contamination. The survey also collected data from Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Zambia, Uganda and Mali.

“Every health-care facility must be able to operate with clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene,” said Sol Oyuela, WaterAid’s executive director of global policy and campaigns. “These are basic human rights, but won’t be achieved without international collaboration.”

Many African nations’ health budgets are also facing increased pressure from a debt crisis that’s brewing across the developing world. Some 3.3 billion people, or about half the world’s population, are living in countries that spend more on debt payments than on education and health care, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Ghana, Ethiopia and Zambia are already in debt default and working to restructure billions of dollars of liabilities.