The potential economic burden of Zika in the continental United States

Abstract

BackgroundAs the Zika virus epidemic continues to spread internationally, countries such as the United States must determine how much to invest in prevention, control, and response. Fundamental to these decisions is quantifying the potential economic burden of Zika under different scenarios.Methodology/Principle findingsTo inform such decision making, our team developed a computational model to forecast the potential economic burden of Zika across six states in the US (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) which are at greatest risk of Zika emergence, under a wide range of attack rates, scenarios and circumstances. In order to accommodate a wide range of possibilities, different scenarios explored the effects of varying the attack rate from 0.01% to 10%. Across the six states, an attack rate of 0.01% is estimated to cost $183.4 million to society ($117.1 million in direct medical costs and $66.3 million in productivity losses), 0.025% would result in $198.6 million ($119.4 million and $79.2 million), 0.10% would result in $274.6 million ($130.8 million and $143.8 million) and 1% would result in $1.2 billion ($268.0 million and $919.2 million).ConclusionsOur model and study show how direct medical costs, Medicaid costs, productivity losses, and total costs to society may vary with different attack rates across the six states and the circumstances at which they may exceed certain thresholds (e.g., Zika prevention and control funding allocations that are being debated by the US government). A Zika attack rate of 0.3% across the six states at greatest risk of Zika infection, would result in total costs that exceed $0.5 billion, an attack rate of 1% would exceed $1 billion, and an attack rate of 2% would exceed $2 billion.

Quantifying the risk of local Zika virus transmission in the contiguous US during the 2015–2016 ZIKV epidemic

“…Two geographical locations have experienced local transmission of ZIKV in the contiguous US: Miami-Dade County, in Florida, and Cameron County, in Texas [ 7 , 8 ]. While the outbreaks in Florida and Texas were limited, the indirect impact on the local economy has been remarkable [ 9 ].…”

The Potential Health Care Costs And Resource Use Associated With COVID-19 In The United States

“…Computational models have helped quantify the potential impact of and guide decision making for epidemics and outbreaks in the past, such as the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] the ongoing Ebola outbreak that emerged in 2018, 17 and the 2015-2016 Zika outbreak. 18,19 Therefore, we developed a computational model to represent what may happen to each patient infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and quantify potential resource use and direct medical costs (i.e., costs directly attributable to health care resource use for interventions and care that are specific to COVID-19 illness and would typically be paid out by third-party payers) in the U.S. under various conditions.…”

Risk society online: Zika virus, social media and distrust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“…Zika-related birth defect. Familial care costs are approximated to be $10 million per microcephalic case across the life course (CDC 2016), whereas some researchers estimate that a 2 per cent infection rate could cost the United States over $2 billion total (Lee et al 2017). With the emotional and economic toll so high, it is imperative to understand how emerging infectious disease's (EID) like this are both constructed and assessed in terms of risk and trust in public health authorities.…”