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The Effects of Ebola Virus on the Economy of West Africa through the Trade Channel

2014; Volume: 19; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.9790/0837-191044856

2279-0845

Olusegun Adegun,

Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology

This study investigates the impact of Ebola on West African Economies through the trade channel, articles from relevant journals and trade data of West African countries were gathered from National Bureau of Statistics, and other relevant organizations', previous literatures on the relationship between health, trade and growth were also discussed.It was discovered that Ebola virus will affect the GDPs of West African economies of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea more than Nigeria I.Introduction:Ebola virus first broke out in Zaire and Sudan in 1976.Mortality rates were 88% in Zaire and 66% in Sudan, with 500 cases.In one small village in Zaire, 274 out of 300 people infected in an outbreak died.This disease resurfaced in 1995 according to the Zairian health ministry affecting medical professionals.170 had died as of May 11 th 1995 in response to people fleeing Kikwit and possibly spreading the virus.The government of Zaire attempted to cordon off the city to keep inhabitants from spreading the disease across the countryside and possibly even into the slums of Kinshasa, Zaire's capital.Kikwit was put under quarantine.It was unable at that period to contain the spread of the virus even with the support of international medical experts from Belgium, France, and South Africa.Poor health infrastructure, inadequate proactive measures can be attributed to the failure of the government during that time to contain the spread.(Rupavate S, 2014).In recent times, the Ebola virus was reported first in Guinea in March 2014.Now the virus has spread to other West African nations like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal.The major scare of this deadly virus is the number of lives that have already been claimed ranging from 42-66%.(World Health Organization, 2014).As of September 10 th 2014, a total of 2,281 deaths had been recorded out of 4,614 suspected or confirmed cases (World Bank, 2014).One immediate reaction by government authorities was to regulate movement through partial or total closure of borders.On July 27 th 2014, the Liberian president announced her country"s decision to close its borders expect for few crossing points, like the international airports.Senegal closed its borders with Guinea and Cameroon has also closed its borders with Nigeria.Sierra Leone has declared a state of emergency, while other West African nations like Nigeria are subjecting passengers at the airports to screening to ascertain their health status.As a result of the epidemic many events such as conferences, seminars and workshops scheduled to take place on the continent are being cancelled or postponed.Airlines are also cancelling flights to affected nations.For example; British Airways, Emirates and Asky airlines have cancelled flights to Sierra Leone and Liberia.Aside this, international businesses are already recalling their employees from these countries.In Liberia, Caterpillar Inc has evacuated a handful of employees and Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd has suspended a drilling project, Dangote Group of Companies has pulled out its employees, and the recent lockdown in Sierra Leone is also a potential threat to national productivity and growth.The above mentioned outcomes of the deadly disease could have severe consequences on economic growth in West African nations if it persists.Previous studies on the relationship between health and economic growth have alluded to the fact that virus outbreaks could impact negatively on economic growth.Arndt and Lewis (2000) and ( 2011) used a multi sector computable general equilibrium model to examine the impact of HIV / AIDS on South African economic growth, and predicted that by 2010 annual (G.D.P.) in South Africa would be 17% smaller in the presence of AIDS (Over, 1992) performed a cross country regression study across 30 Sub-Saharan African countries and suggest that AIDS could lead to a 0.56% to 1.08% drop in the level of annual GDP growth between 1990 and 2025.(Sackey and Rarpala, 2000) projected Lesotho"s GDP growth in 2010 would drop from 4.0% without AIDS to 2.4% with the disease, and in 2015, drop from 4.0% to 1.3%.(Alemu et al, 2005) using panel data for over 100 countries examined the effect of HIV on factor productivity growth and concluded that factor productivity growth fell by 23% in Lesotho and in South Africa it fell by 15%.(Gall up and Sachs, 2001) conducted a study on the economic burden of malaria using cross-country regressions from , and discovered that countries with intensive malaria grew 1.3% less per year and a 10% reduction in malaria was associated with 0.3% higher growth.(Bloom et al, 2004) argued that East Asian growth miracle was no miracle at all: rather it represents compelling evidence for a process in which health improvements played a leading role