Economic evaluation of short treatment for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, Ethiopia and South Africa: the STREAM trial.

Objective: To investigate cost changes for health systems and participants, resulting from switching to short treatment regimens for multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis.

Methods: We compared the costs to health systems and participants of long (20 to 22 months) and short (9 to 11 months) MDR tuberculosis regimens in Ethiopia and South Africa. Cost data were collected from participants in the STREAM phase-III randomized controlled trial and we estimated health-system costs using bottom-up and top-down approaches.