Economic impact of avian flu pandemic on Asia

• Main Author: Masoud Mardani
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Avian flu
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1033.5425; http://www.sid.ir/en/VEWSSID/J_pdf/122020060101.pdf

1The outbreak of SARS in 2003 showed that even a disease with a relatively small health impact can have a major economic effect. Globally, SARS is believed to have infected around 8000 people, killing 800 (1). The Asian Development Bank estimated that the economic impact of SARS was around $18 billion in East Asia, around 0.6 % of gross domestic product (2). In 1997, the first human who was infected with H5N1 reported from Hong Kong, following with 18 infected people among whom 6 were died. Fortunately, the Hong Kong Government destroyed around 1.5 million poultry and interrupted the direct transmission of virus from birds to human at that time. The next 5-year period was the disease free period while in February 2003 two new cases were reported in south China who had migrated from Hong Kong. A flu pandemic would put at risk the health of millions and have serious economic consequences. The recent outbreak of the avian influenza H5N1 (avian flu), has raised concerns about a new global pandemic. The outbreak has already severely damaged poultry production in several countries. Coming one year after the outbreak of SARS in 2003, the public was quite alert and governments too action to cull and destroy poultry at risk. However, the reappearance of the disease in 2005