Recent CDC data confirms the high burden and cost (over $100,000 per case) of newborns impacted by herpes. Herpes infections in newborns are preventable but few obstetricians test mothers and even fewer people know their herpes status. HCA calls on the CDC to immediately require newborn herpes case notification by states and for better testing and awareness in the community.
The CDC STI Surveillance and Data Science Branch has been hard at work re-evaluating neonatal herpes (nHSV) data. Earlier this month, they presented an abstract that was accepted at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). This abstract was based on updates to Healthcare Cost & Utilization Kids’ Inpatient Database (HCUP KID) estimates of nHSV burden. To read the abstract, click here.
In a previous paper from 2006, the data at that time showed 9.6 cases of nHSV per 100,000 births. Based on the latest research in the new abstract, these statistics have now increased to 15.7 cases per 100,000 births. That’s approximately 561 newborns born with nHSV in one year. Of those births, about 4.6% of them result in death. This is unacceptable and we are happy this data is now coming to light and being shared. We thank our partners at the CDC for continuing to research Neonatal Herpes and we hope this will create urgency in making nHSV a reportable infection across the nation.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Write to your elected officials! Ask for meetings to discuss Herpes. Request for Neonatal Herpes to be a required reportable disease. nHSV can be preventable but many doctors don’t test their pregnant patients for HSV. Better testing and education is needed across the community to eliminate nHSV.
Check out our Advocates Starter Guide and our Stakeholder Email List to get started!
ABOUT HCUP KID
The Kids’ Inpatient Database is part of a family of databases and software tools developed for the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). HCUP inpatient data are based on administrative data—discharge abstracts created by hospitals for billing. The KID is the largest publicly-available all-payer pediatric inpatient care database in the United States. The KID yields national estimates of hospital inpatient stays for patients younger than 21 years of age. The unique design of the KID enables national and regional studies of common and rare pediatric conditions. The KID can be used to identify, track, and analyze national trends in healthcare utilization, cost, quality, and outcomes.