Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcast on the economic impact of epidemics and pandemics.

As the new coronavirus spreads massively across the globe, it's not only human lives which are at risk, but also our economies and our way of life.

Trade, health, transportation, agriculture, tourism, education, no sector remains untouched.

So what can the EU do in such situations?

How well equipped is it to deal with the effects of epidemics and pandemics?

Stay with us.

When does an infectious disease become an epidemic or a pandemic?

It is simply a matter of skill.

While an endemic outbreak is something small and unusual, an epidemic is bigger and spreading,

and by the time it becomes a pandemic, it is already international and difficult to control.

Unfortunately, this is the path followed thus far by the COVID-19 coronavirus, putting governments

around the world under immense pressure. And while a national or regional economy is always impacted

by an epidemic or pandemic, some sectors of the economy are harder hit than others.

So which are these sectors?

Well, as you can probably guess, the health sector is at the top of the list.

As more and more patients rush to the emergency services and are admitted for short or long-term

treatment, hospitals also need to deal with increased administrative,

personnel and operational costs. Sometimes these are impossible to assume without emergency

financial support. To give you an idea of the costs we're talking about, a 2017 report from

the United Nations Development Programme estimated that the 2015 Zika virus epidemic

may have cost as much as 16 billion euros in Latin America and the Caribbean.

And while in the short term the biggest impact was felt in the tourism sector, in the long term,

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