Question

Can I get some help to Create a Presentation on the Cost of an Outbreak of a High-Risk Disease? Thank you very much.

Answer 1

Infectious diseases, which are among the leading causes of death worldwide, do not confine themselves to national borders. Their capacity to spread rapidly across geographies – jeopardizing social and economic security as well as challenging human health and well-being – is amplified by ever-growing globalization, increased trade and travel, the rise in urbanization, and changes in the environment, behaviour and society. Some threats, such as influenza, are known. Others are not. Unknown just a few decades ago, HIV/AIDS has killed more than 30 million people from all socio-economic backgrounds.

new opportunities to predict, prevent, detect and treat diseases are emerging from a better understanding of the social determinants of health and from trends including new technologies in real-time diagnosis, data analysis (including in the field of genomics), biomedical research, the internet and mobile data and communications, often developed outside the traditional health sector. More innovative ideas, partnerships, and ways of working and financing will be critical for containing the dynamic threat of outbreaks in the 21^st century.

Beyond direct effects on health, infectious diseases impose significant economic costs. Adding to the direct costs borne by sufferers and their households, infectious diseases – particularly those that are relatively fast-spreading or poorly understood by the general population – have an additional economic impact through a response called “aversion behaviour”. This was demonstrated when Singapore came to an economic standstill over SARS, as well as in responses to Ebola in 2014 and HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s.

The model-based simulations suggest that the least-cost disease control strategy depends upon the perceived risk of the disease, as well as media intervention. The most cost-effective solution for diseases with low perceived risk was to implement moderate control measures. For diseases with higher perceived severity, such as SARS or Ebola, the most cost-effective strategy shifted toward intervening earlier in the outbreak, with greater resources. When intervention elicited increased media involvement, it remained important to control high severity diseases quickly. For moderate severity diseases, however, it became most cost-effective to implement no intervention and allow the disease to run its course. Our simulation results imply that, when diseases are perceived as severe, the costs of social response have a significant influence on selecting the most cost-effective strategy.

Veterinary Services (VS)
VS are at the very core of the prevention, control and eradication of animal diseases;
Their ability to effectively safeguard the livestock sector from such diseases is crucial for the protection both of public health and of rural livelihoods (in terms of food security and poverty alleviation);
These objectives are commonly classified in literature as ‘public goods’;
The provision of VS could be defined as an intermediate public good, the final public good being to guarantee the above objectives.

Definition: prevention costs
For the purposes of our analysis:
Prevention and control costs are defined as those incurred by governments during ‘normal’ times, i.e. in advance of outbreaks;
These include:
Veterinary System: surveillance (including diagnostic capacity/laboratories); veterinary border inspection / customs; human resources; training and simulation exercises;
Preventive vaccination: vaccine stocks / storage (cold chain); human resources;
Bio-security measures: to the extent there is public intervention (e.g. animal identification, guidelines on animal movement etc.).
Definition: outbreak costs
For the purposes of our analysis we differentiate between:
Direct impact. Includes: direct losses (loss from the value of culled/lost animals, culling and disposal costs); control costs during and after the outbreak (e.g. equipment, facilities, (ring) vaccination where appropriate, etc.); consequential on-farm losses (due to fall in stock, movement restrictions etc.);
Indirect impact. Includes: ripple effects (on product prices and on upstream/downstream activities along the livestock value chain); spill-over effects: tourism and services are two sectors most severely affected; wider society: other economic losses due inter alia to effects on public health, particularly in case of a human pandemic.

Literature review: prevention costs /1
Assessment of costs at international level:
review and analysis of financing framework under global/ regional programmes for the fight against diseases (e.g.: WB global financing needs and gaps for HPAI; FMD campaigns in SE Asia (SEAFMD), the Americas (PANAFTOSA); Pan-African programme for control of epizootics (PACE); etc.)
Assessment of costs at national level:
review and analysis of national emergency and preparedness plans for AI and of WB projects under the GPAI (covered 47 countries in total);
for Africa, ALIVE needs assessment for HPAI (covered 54 African countries in total)

Key conclusions from our assessment:

•Difficulties in comparing plans across countries;

•This reflects the varying nature of needs and priorities in each country, including in terms of disease occurrence, farming structures, and existing veterinary systems and infrastructure;

•Such specificities highlight the risks of extrapolating from ad hoc country cases to a regional and global level