Impacts of avian influenza virus on animal production in developing countries

This paper reviews the (predominantly grey) literature on impacts of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) strain H5N1 and control responses on the livestock sector and associated industries in developing countries. The authors distinguish between impacts that arise directly through HPAI-related morbidity and mortality, those that are a consequence of public intervention to control or eradicate HPAI, and impacts that are mediated through market reactions. The paper further considers how these impacts propagate upand downstream through related supply and distribution networks, how short-term reactions are followed by longer-term adjustments, how impacts include direct cost elements and foregone income, and why losses to the poultry sector will, at least to some extent, be ‘passed on’ on the one hand, for example through compensation, and, on the other hand, be compensated for by gains in other livestock subsectors. Differences in methodology applied in the reviewed reports result in a lack of comparability of estimates for HPAI ‘costs/impacts’ across countries and even within countries and are compounded by information deficits. Despite these shortcomings, the literature permits some significant conclusions to be drawn on the relative importance of direct and indirect impacts and on their distribution across different types of poultry producers. The paper ends by outlining directions of future research that combine epidemiology and economics to provide a framework for disease control decisionmaking.