AUTHOR=Moran Declan Patrick , Pires Sara Monteiro , Wyper Grant M. A. , Devleesschauwer Brecht , Cuschieri Sarah , Kabir Zubair 

TITLE=Estimating the Direct Disability-Adjusted Life Years Associated With SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in the Republic of Ireland: The First Full Year

JOURNAL=International Journal of Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 67 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/international-journal-of-public-health/articles/10.3389/ijph.2022.1604699

DOI=10.3389/ijph.2022.1604699

ISSN=1661-8564

ABSTRACT=Objectives

Burden of Disease frameworks facilitate estimation of the health impact of diseases to be translated into a single measure, such as the Disability-Adjusted-Life-Year (DALY). 

Methods
 
DALYs were calculated as the sum of Years of Life Lost (YLL) and Years Lived with Disability (YLD) directly associated with COVID-19 in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) from March 01, 2020, to February 28, 2021. Life expectancy is based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study life tables for 2019. 

Results

There were 220,273 cases with 4,500 deaths. DALYs were estimated to be 51622.8 (95% Uncertainty Intervals [UI] 50,721.7, 52,435.8). Overall, YLL contributed to 98.5% of the DALYs. Of total symptomatic cases, 6.5% required hospitalisation, of those hospitalised 10.8% required intensive care unit treatment. COVID-19 was likely the second highest cause of death over our study’s duration.

Conclusion

Estimating the burden of a disease at national level is useful for comparing its impact with other diseases in the population and across populations. This work sets out to standardise a COVID-19 BoD methodology framework for the RoI and comparable nations in the EU.