For the past several months, the thought of the Zika Virus and speculation regarding how and when it would affect Jamaica have been rampant in both the traditional media and social media.

This was even further heightened by the first confirmed case in the island and once again earlier this week when Minister of Health, DrChristopher Tufton, held a press conference updating the nation on the current level of preparedness against the virus. At that press briefing, he indicated that there were currently 15 confirmed cases of the virus across the island. He also said that his ministry believes there are more cases of the Zika virus that haven’t been confirmed.

Meanwhile, head of the Association of General Practitioners told the Gleaner in an article posted on Thursday June 2, 2016 that the 15 cases of Zika that Tufton has confirmed do not give a “true representation” of how the Zika epidemic is unravelling. He says medical practitioners are seeing an upsurge in the number of cases, and a number of doctors are seeing large numbers of cases every day. “Personally, I’m seeing like about seven cases each day, and this has been going on for the past couple of weeks,” he said.

The chikungunya like movement the Zika Virus is taking in its early stages has therefore left me with several questions, the first of which is ‘how much will the Zika Virus affect Jamaica’s economy and productivity’?
According to the World Bank, the Zika Virus will cost the world approximately US$3.5 billion in 2016 and specifically, it will cost the Jamaican population $112 million (In January, the Jamaican government budgeted over half-a-billion dollars to combat the Zika Virus). In general, these figures identified by the World Bank,are generated by adding together estimates of four categories of spending: direct outlays, lost productivity, loss from death and the impact of avoidance.

Additionally, the World Bank indicated that the virus will result in time, labor and productivity losses due to time off from work based on 1 week absence for one in 5 of the 4 million projected by PAHO to be infected in the course of 2016.

Secondly, how much different will the impact of Zika be than that of Chik V on worker productivity?

In October of 2014, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) estimated that about 13 million man hours were lost to the chikungunya epidemic, potentially resulting in economic losses of more than $6 billion as workers stay off the job while recovering. PSOJ Chief Executive Officer Dennis Chung had said that feedback provided to the trade group indicates that some business places were seeing up to 60 per cent of staff affected. Meanwhile, a survey conducted by the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association showed infected workers absent from work for an average of four days at 81 companies, representing 35,072 of lost man hours.

What then will be the cost on productivity levels of Zik V? Is the Jamaican society and economy ready for that impact?