AIR updates pandemic model; is selected by World Bank to model facility
AIR Worldwide has expanded its global pandemic model to include outbreaks of six additional diseases.
The global pandemic model now accounts for nine pathogens, including bacterial and viral diseases, in addition to previously modelled influenza, coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS, and filoviruses including Ebola and Marburg.
The model update also includes two pathogens from Bunyaviridae viral family (Rift Valley Fever Virus and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus), Lassa hemorrhagic fever (LHF) from the Arenaviridae viral family, and bacterial-pathogens-associated cholera (Vibrio cholera), plague (Yersinia pestis), and meningococcal meningitis (Neisseria meningitidis).
Following this update, the World Bank Group has selected AIR to model its Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF).
The PEF is a global financing mechanism designed to protect the world against deadly pandemics, and includes and insurance window, which combines funding from the reinsurance and/or insurance-linked securities markets, as well as a complementary cash window.
Doug Fullam, senior manager of life and health modelling at AIR Worldwide, said: "Large-scale infectious disease pandemics can cause millions of deaths and billions-or even trillions-of dollars in economic and insured losses.
"The possible frequency and scale of these perils are shifting as global connectivity grows, animal habitats alter, medical advancements continue, the population ages, and the climate changes. It's important to assess the potential risk to today's life and health portfolios."
This is expected to be the first time the World Bank issues a financial instrument to combat infectious diseases. According to the World Bank, in the event of an outbreak, the PEF is expected to release funds quickly to countries and qualified international responding agencies.
Priya Basu, manager of development finance at World Bank, added: "The analytic structure and modelling are the bedrock of risk-transfer programs like the PEF.
"We're confident that AIR Worldwide's analytical and execution capabilities can help ensure that funds mobilised by the PEF are able to help prevent rare, high-severity outbreaks from becoming more deadly and costly pandemics."
Fullam commented: "Modelling plays a crucial role in developing a facility such as the PEF. Emerging infectious diseases pose some of the biggest threats to the life and health of people around the globe, and AIR models can help organisations anticipate the drivers of mortality and morbidity risk to facilitate optimal risk management, risk transfer, and risk mitigation decisions to help them better prepare financially and, more important, on a humanitarian level."
