title: The economic impact of Plasmodium falciparum malaria on education investment: a Pacific Island case study.
abstract: A small but intensive study was carried out adopting a simple method which attempts to quantify the economic consequences Plasmodium falciparum malaria on education investment through school pupil absenteeism in a community in Solomon Islands. In a randomized sample of 4,920 cases of P. falciparum malaria in a community, 2,886 occurred in children of primary school age group of 7 to 13 years. On average a case gave rise to a mean school absenteeism of 5.3 days. In the final analysis a total of 11,028 pupil days schooling were lost due to the sampled cases of malaria caused by the species. This is equivalent to 55.14 school pupil years as a child is expected to attend school for 200 days in a year. A primary school teacher with an average annual salary of US$3,990.00 is expected to teach 6,500 school pupil days a year. When this is adopted as an economic indicator for investment in education the loss is calculated to be US$6,769.57 or equivalent to US$1.38 per case. When this is applied nationally, assuming that rates are similar for 79,203 cases of P. falciparum reported in 1990, the total consequence for investment in education is US$108,966.00, which is equivalent to 27.31 teachers being paid for not teaching, an unacceptable impact for a small nation like the Solomon Islands.
authors.affiliation: Solomon Islands Medical Training and Research Institute, Honiara.
authors.forename: N K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Kere
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keni
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Kere
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bobogare
authors.forename: R H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Webber
authors.forename: B A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Southgate
mesh_terms: D000041:Absenteeism; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D017281:Cost of Illness; D004493:Education / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000191:economics*; D008542:Melanesia