The Economic Impact of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic : Short and Medium Term Estimates for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone
The 2014 outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa has taken a horrible human toll. Although the outbreak originated in rural Guinea, it has hit hardest in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in part because it has reached urban areas in these two c...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/09/20214465/economic-impact-2014-ebola-epidemic-short-medium-term-estimates-guinea-liberia-sierra-leone http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20218 |
| Summary: | The 2014 outbreak of the Ebola Virus
Disease in West Africa has taken a horrible human toll.
Although the outbreak originated in rural Guinea, it has hit
hardest in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in part because it has
reached urban areas in these two countries, a factor that
distinguishes this outbreak from previous episodes
elsewhere. As of September 10, 2014, there had been 2,281
recorded deaths out of 4,614 suspected or confirmed cases of
Ebola. Experts fear that the true numbers may be two to four
times larger, due to underreporting. Misery and suffering
have been intense, especially in Liberia where doctors have
had to turning patients away for lack of space in Ebola
treatment centers. Inevitably, before the outbreak is
contained the human impacts will increase considerably over
these numbers. Epidemiological estimates are acknowledged as
highly uncertain and are not the subject of this note. What
is certain is that limiting the human cost will require
significant financial resources and a concerted partnership
between international partners and the affected countries.
Particularly in Liberia and Sierra Leone, government
capacity is already overrun and the epidemic is impacting
macroeconomic activity and budgetary resources. This note
informs the response to the epidemic by estimating these
macroeconomic and fiscal effects. Any such exercise is
necessarily highly imprecise due to limited data and many
uncertain factors, but it is still necessary in order to
plan the economic assistance that must accompany the
immediate humanitarian response. The goal is to help
affected countries to recover and return to the robust
economic growth they had experienced until the offset of
this crisis. |
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