ABSTRACT
During the 2009 A(H1N1) influenza pandemic, the governments’ “over-spending” was subject to public criticism, yet our fieldwork interviews hint that money was not an issue for the public authorities of high-income countries, compared to organizational or communication issues. To answer this controversy, we compute the public expenditure required for the last influenza pandemic in Japan, Switzerland and the United States, who successfully managed the 2009 A(H1N1) crisis according to their pandemic plans’ objectives. We compute the public expenditure for their respective response, in total and per inhabitant, and relate the variations among them to the differences in their intervention strategies. Overall, we find that the response budgets for handling the A(H1N1) pandemic were consequent but not a major disruption to the finances. We also find that public authorities at national/federal level spent between $7.95 and $26.60 per inhabitant to manage the A(H1N1) crisis. Vaccination was the main cost driver in all three countries, but with differences in the vaccination policy and intended coverage (from 29% to 83% of the general population).
