The Economic Impact of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic : Short and Medium Term Estimates for West Africa
The 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus disease in West Africa has taken a devastating human toll. Although the outbreak originated in rural Guinea, it has hit hardest in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in part because it has reached urban areas in these tw...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/10/20270083/economic-impact-2014-ebola-epidemic-short-medium-term-estimates-west-africa http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20396 |
| Summary: | The 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus
disease in West Africa has taken a devastating human toll.
Although the outbreak originated in rural Guinea, it has hit
hardest in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in part because it has
reached urban areas in these two countries, a factor that
distinguishes this outbreak from previous episodes
elsewhere. As of October 3, 2014, there had been 3,431
recorded deaths out of 7,470 probable, suspected, or
confirmed cases of Ebola. This report informs the response
to the epidemic by presenting best-effort estimates of its
macroeconomic and fiscal effects. Any such exercise is
necessarily highly imprecise due to limited data and many
uncertain factors, but it is still necessary in order to
plan the economic assistance that must accompany the
immediate humanitarian response. The goal is to help
affected countries to recover and return to the robust
economic growth they had experienced until the onset of this
crisis. This document presents the World Bank's
preliminary estimates of the economic impact of the Ebola
outbreak in West Africa for 2014 (short term impact) and
2015 (medium term impact). Section 2 presents a single set
of 2014 estimates for Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea,
based on available data on current economic activity as well
as assumptions about the short-term impact. It also presents
current data on the limited current impacts on other
countries in the region. Section 3 presents estimates for
the impact by the end of 2015 for Liberia, Guinea, and
Sierra Leone, as well as estimates for West Africa as a
whole. Because the epidemic and the behavioral responses to
it have more time to diverge over the course of 2015,
Section 3 presents two scenarios for 2015, which vary in the
optimism of their assumptions regarding the epidemic and the
success of donor and government policy and efforts to
control it. The take-away messages from this analysis are a
low Ebola scenario that corresponds to rapid containment
within the three most severely affected countries, and a
high Ebola scenario corresponds to slower containment in the
three countries, with some broader regional contagion. A
swift policy reaction by the international community is
crucial. With potential the economic costs of the Ebola
epidemic being so high, very substantial containment and
mitigation expenditures would be cost-effective, if they
successfully avert the worst epidemiological outcomes. To
mitigate the medium term economic impact of the outbreak,
current efforts by many partners to strengthen the health
systems and fill the fiscal gaps in the core three countries
are key priorities. Finally, this report does not take into
account the longer term impacts generated by mortality,
failure to treat other health conditions due to aversion
behavior and lack of supply capacity, school closings and
dropouts, and other shocks to livelihoods. It is truly
focused on the short and medium-term inputs, over the next
18 months. |
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