Impact of a Hypothetical Infectious Disease Outbreak on US Exports and Export-Based Jobs

Bambery, Zoe; Cassell, Cynthia H.; Bunnell, Rebecca E.; Roy, Kakoli; Ahmed, Zara; Payne, Rebecca L.; Meltzer, Martin I.

As a lower estimate of economic impact, we used an outbreak-related 3.3% reduction in GDP. We derived this estimate from a 2014 World Bank mathematical model. This model was used to estimate the ''spillover'' economic impact of Ebola epidemic to all 17 West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Cote D'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo) 12 (Table 2 ). The complex World Bank model of the economic impact is based on estimates of Ebola epidemic-induced changes in demand and production in 6 sectors (agriculture, natural resources, trade, manufacturing, transport, and services) in each country. The World Bank report provided results from a number of models, which were built using a variety of assumptions. We used the results from the World Bank model labeled by those authors as ''High Ebola scenario.'' In this World Bank model, it was assumed that the West African Ebola epidemic would eventually cause approximately 200,000 cases. 12 This assumption is almost 10-fold greater than what actually occurred in the West African Ebola epidemic. 2 In our illustrative outbreak scenario, however, we assume that the greatest impact occurs from an initially e Percentage loss is calculated using the 1-year (2015) estimated lost GDP due to Ebola (ie, the numerator) as a percentage of the expected 2015 GDP without Ebola (ie, the denominator). In the illustrative outbreak scenario in this article, the lower estimate of economic impact used was 3.3% of GDP, and the upper limit was 16.3% of GDP. uncontained outbreak that causes cases in 9 countries (Table 1) . These countries contain more than 2.5 billion people, with many living in urban areas with very high population densities. 13 Under our assumptions, it is not necessarily unrealistic to assume that an initially uncontained outbreak that spreads to all 9 scenario countries would cause more than 100,000 cases.