WHO: estimating the losses of a flu pandemic

The predicted toll of a year of “modest” bird flu and influenza pandemic -

• A billion people infected
• Two to seven million killed
• $200 billion lost in global economy

So says Jean-Marc Olive, a representative of the World Health Organization to the Philippines this week. The estimates were taken using models based on previous flu epidemics. Estimates last December placed the death toll at 62 million worldwide .

“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.”

Already with the current bird flu epidemics, affected countires have lost $8 to $12 billion with the massive culling of infected birds. But the WHO believes that there is a window of oppportunity to prepare for rapid response and containment, and for a worse-case scenario. Olive cited the culling of Hong Kong’s entire poultry population in 1997 probably averted a pandemic that time.

[Source: Bloomberg]

Tags: WHO, economic losses, influenza pandemic, global economy

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