Household Cost of Illness

A Study of Chikungunya Fever

Chikungunya fever is a vector borne disease transmitted by mosquitoes that became widely prevalent in most of the coastal States of Indian Union since 2006. It causes numerous health problems to the victims and cognitive problems for medical practitioners and policy makers. Several episodes of the fever have shown long term physical and neurological disability besides short term morbidity. There is no vaccine available to prevent Chikungunya though it is generally considered non-fatal. Hence the disease can be treated at relatively low cost by simple measures to prevent the severity of the disease. However, poor people treated the diseases relatively costly. Though the disease was not new to India, the disease caused panic among the public and resulted in socio political and medical concern when the epidemic outbreak penetrated fast in to rural and urban areas after 2006.The symptoms, side effects and socio-economic impacts were not similar in the affected areas. In the Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu, the disease inflicted more among the rural agricultural laborers and tapper workers in rubber plantations, resulted in severe loss of employment and productivity. The present study is an attempt to analyse the economic impact of Chikungunya fever at the household level in Kanyakuramari District. This report presents the results of the study The Economic Impact of Chikungunya Fever on Household level in Tamil Nadu: A study in Kanyakurmari District This project is undertaken with the financial support from Malcolm and Elizabeth Adiseshaiah Trust, Chennai. This financial assistance is gratefully acknowledged. I am indebted to Presidency College for providing the necessary facilities to undertake the project. I fail in my duty if I dont mention the helps extended by the post graduate students of Marthandam Christian College, Kanyakumari. I am indebted to Prof. R.Nagaraj of MIDS for his valuable guidance in undertaking the project. I also gratefully acknowledge the support of Mr.K.Sampath Kumar. B.P.Chandramohan