Avian Influenza: Risks, Impacts and Policy Implications

Abstract

Avian influenza has been an ongoing concern as a zoonotic food animal disease transmissible to humans which emerged from relative isolation in Asia onto the world stage starting in 2003. The concern is that this disease will transform to become readily transmitted among humans, creating a worldwide pandemic with severe human health and economic impacts. To date, the virus has shown itself to be relatively inefficient in mutating into a human transmissible form. Nonetheless, the economic impacts of the threat of such occurrence have been significant, as they have been for other zoonotic diseases circulating internationally.