A new report released yesterday by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) says that a severe flu pandemic could lead to a major US recession second only to that of World War II.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would drop by 5.5 per cent, and the US economy would lose over 65 billion dollars, says the report.
Executive Director of Trust for America’s Health, Dr Jeff Levi said, “The US is not prepared to face an economic shock of this magnitude”.
He added that, “While important government preparedness efforts focusing mainly on medical and public health strategies are underway, efforts to prepare for the possible economic ramifications have been seriously inadequate. Stepping up pandemic preparedness planning is vital to our national and economic security”.
Titled “Pandemic Flu and the Potential for US Economic Recession: a State by State Analysis,” the TFAH report explains how the authors created a computer model to work out how much each state stood to lose in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. They took estimates from financial and economic experts, and predicted the impact on 20 industries, trade, and worker productivity.
Hardest hit would be high tourism and leisure states such as Nevada and Hawaii. Nevada’s economy would have the biggest GDP drop of around 8 per cent, and Hawaii’s would drop by 6.6 per cent.
According to the report, every state’s GDP would drop by more than 5 per cent, with 21 states dropping by more than 5.5 per cent and six losing the most at over 6 per cent. As well as Nevada and Hawaii, the other four losing over 6 per cent of their GDP would be Alaska, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Louisiana.
The lowest losses in per cent GDP would be suffered by those states whose major industries include government and real estate, such as Virginia and Maryland. Although they are predicted to suffer the smallest loss in GDP it would still be over 5 per cent (5.13 ad 5.09 respectively). Washington DC’s GDP would fall by 4.6 per cent, says the TFAH report.
The computer model the TFAH scientists used assumes the next outbreak would be as severe as the 1918 flu pandemic, which today would infect about 90 million and kill 2.2 million Americans.
They assumed infected people who developed symptoms would take at least 3 weeks off work to recover, with other people also taking time off to look after the sick, or to avoid infection.
They then ran the model assuming that a vaccine would not be readily available for a year together with expert predictions on how the pandemic might affect demand for products and services. A pandemic would probably last for 18 months and unfold as a series of waves lasting 6 to 8 weeks each, they said.
During that time, entertainment and the food industry would probably see an 80 per cent drop in demand, while other industries such as retail, agriculture, construction, finance and insurance would most likely only see a 10 per cent drop in demand.
The report recommends lots of things that businesses and communities can do to prepare for a pandemic, mostly by making sure they keep essential operations going.
They also stressed the importance of adjusting family and medical leave policies; assessing infection control systems at work; enlarging the scope for telecommuting and working from home; putting into place backup plans to keep delivery of goods and services going during an outbreak; and keeping in touch with workforces using up to date communication methods.
The threat of a world pandemic of avian flu has prompted a number of scientific institutions to use different computer models to help national and international preparations.
Earlier this year, scientists from the Indiana University School of Informatics used “the world’s largest-scale epidemic simulation of its kind” to assess the risk of a potential flu pandemic spreading via global airlines. They based their information on databases that track international airline passenger flows. Their study, titled “Modeling the Worldwide Spread of Pandemic Influenza: Baseline Case and Containment Intervention,” was published in the journal PLoS Medicine in January.
One of the comparisons they made was between a “selfish strategy” where each country just concerned itself with containing its own outbreak by relying on its own stockpiles, and a “cooperative strategy”, where countries donated part of their stockpiles. They found strongly in favour of cooperative sharing of resources, overseen by the World Health Organization as an efficient way to “deal with an emerging influenza pandemic waiting for vaccine development”.
In August 2005, scientists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced another computer model that could be used within days of an outbreak to help track and predict the potential growth and direction of an epidemic. The scientists in that case said the best way to stop an epidemic would be a containment plan based on a number of strategies working together.
First, doctors must have up to date diagnostic tools and knowledge to identify and report cases quickly. Secondly, isolate infected people, and reduce non-essential social contact, for example close schools and businesses for a while. Third, treat the 20,000 people closest to the outbreak with anti-viral drugs.
They said it would take a stockpile of at least 3 million courses to eliminate an outbreak, and the effort and resources involved would be considerable. Surveillance would also have to improve and public health teams trained, they said.
Click here for the full TFAH report (PDF).
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Written by: Catharine Paddock
Writer: Medical News Today