Bird Flu May Lead to $200 Billion in Losses Worldwide

[Sally Furniss]

Bird Flu May Lead to $200 Billion in Losses Worldwide (Update1)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aCl7Rm0bVxlY&refer=latin_america

By Luzi Ann Javier

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- The global economy may suffer as much as $200 billion in losses with a ``modest'' bird flu and influenza pandemic that lasts more than a year, the World Health Organization said.

``The risk of a pandemic is great and continuing to persist due to the H5N1 virus,'' Jean-Marc Olive, a World Health Organization representative to the Philippines, said in an avian influenza forum in Manila today. ``The evolution of the threat cannot be predicted.''

The world has experienced influenza pandemics almost every 30 to 40 years since 1850, and the next one may lead to 2 million to 7 million deaths and 1 billion cases worldwide, shaving Asia's gross domestic product by 3 percent and the world economy by 0.5 percent, Olive said.

The World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are working with countries affected by bird flu to prevent a repeat of the Spanish flu that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919. Researchers say Spanish flu is a lot like the H5N1 virus.

The countries recently affected by the H5N1 virus incurred combined economic losses of $8 billion to $12 billion with the culling, Olive said without citing the countries.

The Philippines may incur losses equivalent to 2 percent of the economy because ``there are a lot of people who depend on agriculture for their livelihood,'' Olive said.

Poultry accounted for 12.5 percent of the 887.6 billion peso ($18.6 billion) agriculture output in the Philippines in 2006. Agriculture employs a third of the 33.5 million workers in the country.

``There is a window of opportunity to prepare for rapid response and containment, and for a worse-case scenario,'' Olive said, adding that the culling of the entire poultry population in Hong Kong in 1997 after H5N1 virus spread ``probably averted a pandemic.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Manila at ljavier@bloomberg.net

[HenryN]

Re: Bird Flu May Lead to $200 Billion in Losses Worldwide

Bird Flu May Lead to $200 Billion in Losses Worldwide (Update1)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aCl7Rm0bVxlY&refer=latin_america

By Luzi Ann Javier

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- The global economy may suffer as much as $200 billion in losses with a ``modest'' bird flu and influenza pandemic that lasts more than a year, the World Health Organization said.

``The risk of a pandemic is great and continuing to persist due to the H5N1 virus,'' Jean-Marc Olive, a World Health Organization representative to the Philippines, said in an avian influenza forum in Manila today. ``The evolution of the threat cannot be predicted.''

The world has experienced influenza pandemics almost every 30 to 40 years since 1850, and the next one may lead to 2 million to 7 million deaths and 1 billion cases worldwide, shaving Asia's gross domestic product by 3 percent and the world economy by 0.5 percent, Olive said.

The World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations are working with countries affected by bird flu to prevent a repeat of the Spanish flu that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919. Researchers say Spanish flu is a lot like the H5N1 virus.

The countries recently affected by the H5N1 virus incurred combined economic losses of $8 billion to $12 billion with the culling, Olive said without citing the countries.

The Philippines may incur losses equivalent to 2 percent of the economy because ``there are a lot of people who depend on agriculture for their livelihood,'' Olive said.

Poultry accounted for 12.5 percent of the 887.6 billion peso ($18.6 billion) agriculture output in the Philippines in 2006. Agriculture employs a third of the 33.5 million workers in the country.

``There is a window of opportunity to prepare for rapid response and containment, and for a worse-case scenario,'' Olive said, adding that the culling of the entire poultry population in Hong Kong in 1997 after H5N1 virus spread ``probably averted a pandemic.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Manila at ljavier@bloomberg.net

The numbers cited above are SERVERAL years old and EXTREMELY optimistic. 2-7 million dead worldwide is not much more than a bad season of seasonal flu.

[HenryN]

Re: Bird Flu May Lead to $200 Billion in Losses Worldwide

Here is the 2-7 million hand waving reported in 2005 (when it was already VERY old and VERY optimistic)

WHO: Over 7 million could die in flu pandemic
'You could pick almost any number,' health official warns
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:21 p.m. ET Sept 30, 2005

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GENEVA - The U.N. health agency on Friday said it was impossible to estimate how many people would die from a new influenza pandemic, adding that it has warned countries to prepare for a death toll of up to 7.4 million.
“We think that this is the most reasoned position,” said World Health Organization spokesman Dick Thompson, warning that “you could pick almost any number.”
On Thursday, Dr. David Nabarro — the new U.N. coordinator for avian and human influenza — had warned that the “range of deaths could be anything between 5 and 150 million” from a new pandemic.
“One of those numbers will turn out to be right,” Thompson told reporters. “We’re not going to know how lethal the next pandemic is going to be until the pandemic begins.”
Several scientists have made predictions on how many people could die in a flu pandemic, and estimates have ranged from less than 2 million to more than 100 million.
The number of deaths will depend largely on how contagious and lethal the virus is — two factors that cannot be known until the pandemic strain emerges.
However, even though several estimates could be plausible, WHO “can’t be dragged into further scaremongering,” Thompson told reporters.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in large swathes of Asia since 2003, jumping to humans and killing at least 65 people — more than 40 of them in Vietnam — and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds.
Most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds. But WHO has warned that the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans — possibly triggering a global pandemic that could kill millions.
Halt disease before epidemic
Southeast Asia’s agriculture ministers endorsed a regional plan Friday to combat bird flu and pledged to cooperate with international agencies in a move they hope will win enough aid to halt the disease before it becomes a catastrophic epidemic.
The ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, meeting in Tagaytay, Philippines, said in a statement that the flu requires “an all-out coordinated regional effort.”
The meeting in the Philippines ended with the ASEAN ministers’ joint statement endorsing a regional plan for control and eradication of bird flu over three years from 2006 and directing a new task force to urgently formulate “a detailed action plan for implementation and proceed to identify potential sources of funding.”

The plan covers eight strategic areas, including a disease surveillance and alert system, vaccination, improving diagnostic capability and establishing disease-free zones.
The regional framework dovetails with a three-year plan drafted by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE, and the WHO in May, to be presented to international donors in December for implementation next year.
“What we hope to do at the (regional) task force level is to supplement what is going on, what is being done by each individual country and to work with FAO, OIE and WHO,” Singapore’s Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan told a news conference.
ASEAN Deputy Secretary General Wilfrido Villacorta said given the gravity of the problem “we are confident that we shall continue to have the support of our dialogue partners.”
The ASEAN animal health trust fund formally established at the meeting “gives the signal to potential donors that ASEAN member countries are serious about eradicating the avian flu as well as other diseases that are facing the region,” he added. Pledges of $2 million have been made for the fund, which is separate from a regional one for bird flu that ASEAN hopes to have, officials said.
ASEAN comprises Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
“It’s important that we have the political commitment of the region so we can effectively invite the donors to back the program (on bird flu),” said Subhash Mozaria, FAO chief technical adviser.

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