2026/01/27 by Guillaume Morel, Anh Pham, Christian Morgenstern +6 · 2 voices
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Medicine · #Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology #Influenza Virus Research Studies #Zoonotic diseases and public health
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s43247-025-03153-9
openalex publication_date 2026/01/27 · openalex created_date 2026/01/28 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 in U.S. dairy cattle poses substantial risks to public health, economic sustainability of farming, and global food systems. Using a Computable General Equilibrium model, we simulate its short- to medium-term impacts on Gross Domestic Product and other macro-economic outcomes for the US and its main trading partners. We simulate impacts under the current situation and realistic and reasonable worst-case scenarios. We estimate domestic economic losses ranging between 0.06% and 0.9% of US GDP, with losses to the dairy sector ranging between 3.4% and 20.6%. Trading partners increase dairy production to compensate for the loss. Current government subsidies are about 1.2% (95% HDI: 1% to 1.4%) of output losses, and likely insufficient to incentivise farmers to step up surveillance and biosecurity for mitigating the possible emergence of H5N1 strains with pandemic potential into human populations. In the United States, the avian influenza outbreak in dairy cattle could impact the economy and public health, with estimated losses to global domestic product of 0.9 percent and dairy output losses of up to 20 percent, according to a simulation of a computable general equilibrium model.