Читать книгу Modern Epidemics - Salvador Macip - Страница 37

It is calculated that infections have a very high economic cost owing to the consequences both of their mortality and the temporary or permanent disability they cause. This is easier to see in certain epidemics or pandemics. For example, the 1994 outbreak of plague in India caused a massive exodus of 0.5 million people, together with the closing of factories and, logically, a reduction of tourism in the country. It’s estimated that the cost of this was $2,000 million. The 1991 cholera epidemic in Peru paralysed not only tourism but also the fishing industry, as all fish exports were stopped. The losses amounted to some $775 million. The 2003 SARS epidemic cost Asia $140,000 million, mainly due to the decline in tourism. We don’t yet know what the cost will be of having paralysed the world economy for some months because of COVID-19, but it too is expected to be thousands of millions of dollars.

But epidemics don’t have to affect humans in order to have a major social and economic impact. Recall that the United Kingdom lost about $6,000 million as a result of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak in the 1980s and 1990s (aka mad cow disease), which put an end to meat exports for several years.

In cases of endemic diseases, the calculations become complicated. For example, it’s believed that the economic losses because of AIDS in some African countries could amount to as much as a third of their gross domestic product. Tuberculosis causes annual losses of around $12,000 million. A 1995 study showed that countries where malaria is endemic have incomes that are 33 per cent lower than those of countries where the disease is absent, with a GDP loss of 15 per cent.

All of this demonstrates that infectious diseases have a major impact on diminishing a country’s wealth, so finding a way to eliminate them is an important strategy, not only for saving lives but also for reducing poverty and assisting developing countries.