Leveraging flu for biosecurity R&D

There are a number of big-picture reasons why the national governments of rich democratic countries underinvest in biosecurity R&D (even just considering the countries’ self-interests):

• pandemic mitigation remains a non-salient issue to the public

• the probability of a pandemic occurring within the time that a particular government is in power is very low

• the return on investment is difficult to precisely estimate

• returns on investment are not ongoing, and at least appear to be concentrated at an unspecified time in the future when a new pathogen emerges

However, the flu (a likely pandemic pathogen) is responsible for increased burden on health systems every winter (https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/europe-struggling-with-pressure-on-health-systems-in-tough-winter-/2788682) and this is likely to worsen as these countries’ populations age and become even more susceptible to flu.

The flu also likely poses a significant economic burden via absenteeism (workers calling in sick).

As things stand though, for most (possibly all) rich democratic countries, we lack national-level estimates for both:

a) the financial burden on health systems of treating flu b) the economic burden of flu-related absenteeism

Developing these estimates could help policy advocates make a strong case for more investment in R&D to develop:

1. vaccine technologies and platforms to develop more effective flu vaccines
2. surveillance systems to detect and monitor flu outbreaks
3. antivirals to tackle flu

Increasing public sector R&D investment which aims to tackle flu is more tractable than increasing public sector R&D aimed at biosecurity generally, because healthcare systems are politically salient to voters, economic benefits are easier to precisely estimate and the returns on investment seem to be ongoing rather than concentrated at a future point.

It also seems likely to me that technological progress in tackling flu will spillover to progress in tackling other potential pandemic pathogens.

Additionally, the flu, RSV and seasonal COVID could be used by advocates as a reason for broad investments in R&D to tackle respiratory viruses, which could have broader biosecurity benefits.

In terms of next steps, EAs could look at producing estimates of the financial burden on health systems of treating flu and the economic burden of flu-related absenteeism for the largest economies.

This seems like a good idea for:

• Effective Thesis
• bachelors and masters theses for economics students
• bachelors and masters theses for public health students
• people who want to test their fit in health economics research
• High Impact Medicine community projects