PREVENTING THE WERNICKE-KORSAKOFF-SYNDROME IN AUSTRALIA - COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF THIAMIN-SUPPLEMENTATION ALTERNATIVES

Alcoholic Wernicke's encephalopathy has been commonplace in Australia for many years and, as this syndrome is attributed to a deficiency in the diet, it should be preventable. This study employs conventional co st-effectiveness methodology to compare the economic efficiency of sev eral thiamin-supplementation alternatives that have been proposed for the prevention of Wernicke's encephalopathy. A series of rankings of t hese measures is derived from an estimated cost per case averted for e ach of the alternatives studied. These rankings identify the least cos t-effective thiamin-supplementation alternative as that of enriching b read-making flour with thiamin.