Estimating Willingness to Pay for Ivermectin among Households in North-Central of Nigeria: A Contingent Approach

Abstract

Ivermectin has been the drug of choice for treatment of onchocerciasis illness though, the cost associated with treatment is higher compared to other alternative measures which many poor households cannot afford. Nevertheless, the drug is distributed/administered free of charge from the manufacturer with little or no cost borne by the patients. Thus, the need to ascertain households’ willingness to pay for Ivermectin after eternal supports are withdrawn becomes imperative. This study was therefore conducted in 9 local government areas (LGAs) of North-Central Nigeria to establish the mean amount households would be willing to pay as well as examine the socio-economic factors that influence willingness to pay (WTP) for ivermectin treatment. Primary data were collected from 556 individuals from 5537 households using a three stage sampling technique; with each household having the same probability of being selected. Contingent valuation method was used to elicit the willingness to pay (WTP) for the household using the bidding game technique. The relationship between socio-economic status and WTP was also examined using tobit regression model. Results of descriptive statistics indicated over 90% of the respondents were willing to pay certain amount of money for ivermectin treatment. The mean WTP per household per month was N678.64k or N6, 786.40k per month which is lower than the average direct cost of onchocerciasis treatment incurred by households in the study area. Estimates of tobit regression analysis showed that the factors that significantly influenced WTP for onchocerciasis treatment were age of the respondents (P< 0.01), level of education (P< 0.1), household size (P< 0.01), annual income (P< 0.05), and farm size (P< 0.05). The study concluded that though households were willing to pay for ivermectin as effective drug against onchocerciasis, the cost of the drug is relatively high to be borne by households alone considering their poor financial status. The study therefore, suggested that social security scheme should be introduced to protect households against the financial burden of direct health care payments so as to minimize sales of productive household assets to cope with illness shocks.