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The slaughter of more 370,000 chickens in China last week has rekindled concern about the possibilities of a global flu pandemic. The birds were killed after the discovery of that some were infected with the deadly H5N1 virus. AIER’s December Economic Education Bulletin addresses the public health and economic consequences of a bird flu pandemic that could be caused by a mutated H5N1 virus. In “Bird Flu Economics,” William F. Ford, a recent AIER visiting research fellow, reports on the work of those who model for disaster.
Fortunately H5N1 has not yet changed into a virus that can spread from person to person, Should that happen Ford writes, best-case predictions anticipate 1.4 million human deaths worldwide and a loss to the global GDP of $330 billion. The worst case model ups the global death rate 100-fold to 142 million with a global GDP loss of $4.4 trillion. Ford’s piece also examines the grim impact of a bird flu outbreak in America: which industries will be hardest hit and what public health responses we can expect. The world press reports that U.N. authorities have minimized the threat posed by the most recent outbreak of bird flu. But the discovery in China’s Jingsai province follows the slaughter of 90,000 chickens the week before in Hong Kong. And health officials in India and Cambodia, where a 19-year-old man has tested positive for the virus, have begun culling chicken flocks for the disease. In Egypt, the worst-hit country outside Asia, a 16-year-old girl died this month of the disease. Members can access AIER’s “Bird Flu Economics” article by logging into the AIER digital archive (check the December 11 email from AIER for a link to this archive.) Not a member? Find out more about the benefits of becoming an AIER Sustaining Member. Membership starts at less than $40 for electronic delivery.
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