Introduction:

The confrontation to the epidemic of COVID-19 had a negative economic impact in the world, what generated an increment of the expenses and costs in the health sector of Santiago de Cuba province.

Objective:

To describe the economic impact of the COVID-19 in the sanitary sector of Santiago de Cuba during a year.

Methods:

A descriptive and prospective study was carried out in Santiago de Cuba province in the year 2021, for which the day-patient, budgetary expenses, average salary, total costs of a day-patient and unitary costs of a day-patient variables were analyzed.

Results:

The investigation revealed an increment in the expenses and its effect in the economy of the sanitary sector in 2021. When analyzing the expenses for departures, a higher significance was determined in those of medications, with 59.0 % of the total, what represented a growth of the unitary costs in comparison with the published standards.

Conclusions:

The expenses of the sanitary sector in this province contributed to control the propagation of COVID-19, to avoid the over expense for the introduction of vaccines, and allowed the decrease of the infection indexes. Also, the increment of the costs was evidenced in the different activity levels between 3 and 29 times more than the standardized costs of the country.

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