The global burden of typhoid fever.

To use new data to make a revised estimate of the global burden of typhoid fever, an accurate understanding of which is necessary to guide public health decisions for disease control and prevention efforts.

Population-based studies using confirmation by blood culture of typhoid fever cases were sought by computer search of the multilingual scientific literature. Where there were no eligible studies, data were extrapolated from neighbouring countries and regions. Age-incidence curves were used to model rates measured among narrow age cohorts to the general population. One-way sensitivity analysis was performed to explore the sensitivity of the estimate to the assumptions. The burden of paratyphoid fever was derived by a proportional method.