Who pays for the ‘pandemic era’ of rising infectious disease in animal production? Emerging questions and dilemmas for states, society, and academia

Abstract

Unprecedented avian influenza (AI) outbreaks are causing colossal ecological and socio-economic consequences. The economic costs of managing AI risks and impacts are also swelling – a burden that falls partly upon the public sector in many industrialized countries. Yet, clear figures on these costs of AI management - particularly as born by the public sector - are hard to come by and/or generally unknown. We posit that public support to manage AI, such as of monitoring, research, planning and outbreak response, can be considered as another agricultural subsidy, and thus constitutes a topic of public concern. We present the results of an assessment of the public costs of responding to AI in Denmark, a country with substantial animal agriculture and a site of worsening HPAI outbreaks especially since 2020. This contribution issues several contributions: i) insight into a cost-mapping of AI management - the difficulty of which is important in itself, ii) a call for similar inquiry elsewhere, particularly across the EU given common veterinary and financial frameworks, and iii) critical questions for subsequent research that follow such rising costs and their implications - which are pertinent to many countries struggling against more widespread and pernicious infectious disease with pandemic potential.