Since its first discovery in 1937 in the West Nile region in Uganda, Orthoflavivirus nilense, better known as West Nile Virus (WNV), has spread around the world. The virus is transmitted by arthropod vectors and is therefore classified as a vector-borne pathogen, akin to Bluetongue virus, Dengue virus and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus. These viruses cause severe economic burden, owing to their unpredictability and potential for severe clinical manifestations. Despite the epidemic in the United States (1999-2004), that resulted in over 16,700 cases and 467 deaths (ArboNET, CDC), and the recent outbreaks in Europe, there is as yet no unified one health economic model to calculate the impact of an infection with WNV. The aim of this study was to use a literature review to obtain information on the economic impact of WNV in all affected species as well as on the methods used to calculate that impact. A literature search in the databases Web of Science, Pubmed and Scopus using the keywords “West Nile Virus” and “economics” resulted in 77 papers, mostly from the US and southern Europe. There was a large increase in the output of research papers after the introduction of WNV into the US in 1999. The results demonstrated that studies conducted on animals are scarce, and that there is considerable variation between the models presented in the studies. The majority of the studies focused on analysing the impact in the US, with estimates suggesting a potential impact of up to 778 million US dollars since its first introduction in 1999 (Staples et al. 2014). For planning of control measures against a disease, it is necessary to know the occasioned costs and compare them against potential control programs to find the most beneficial approach and to ensure that control programs do not cause more economic damage than the original disease.
Suckau et al. (2026) studied this question.