Yemini child polio vaccination Mohammed Huwais/Stringer

The Mispriced Risk of Infectious Diseases

Global business leaders and investors remain largely transfixed by macroeconomic and geopolitical risks. But a third – arguably more pernicious – risk category has so far stayed largely under decision-makers' radar: infectious diseases.

NEW YORK – Global business leaders and investors are largely transfixed by two kinds of risk: macroeconomic and geopolitical. In the near term, this means a focus on the US Federal Reserve’s impending rate hikes and the upcoming elections in France and Germany. Over the longer term, it means awareness of structural risks like high sovereign debt, demographic shifts, and natural-resource scarcity. But there is a third, arguably more pernicious, risk lurking below most decision-makers’ radar: infectious diseases.

According to the former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tom Frieden, the world is at greater risk than ever from global health threats. People travel farther and more often. Supply chains, including for food and medicines, extend across the world. A poorly treated case of, say, tuberculosis (TB) in Asia or Africa can present in a hospital in the United States within days.

Against this background, scientists are concerned about the recent uptick in epidemics of diseases such as Zika, Ebola, and avian flu. And they are alarmed by the resurgence of life-threatening diseases such as influenza, HIV, malaria, and TB.

https://prosyn.org/FaUEgXJ