  We develop a mathematical framework to study the economic impact of
infectious diseases by integrating epidemiological dynamics with a kinetic
model of wealth exchange. The multi-agent description leads to study the
evolution over time of a system of kinetic equations for the wealth densities
of susceptible, infectious and recovered individuals, whose proportions are
driven by a classical compartmental model in epidemiology. Explicit
calculations show that the spread of the disease seriously affects the
distribution of wealth, which, unlike the situation in the absence of
epidemics, can converge towards a stationary state with a bimodal form.
Furthermore, simulations confirm the ability of the model to describe different
phenomena characteristics of economic trends in situations compromised by the
rapid spread of an epidemic, such as the unequal impact on the various wealth
classes and the risk of a shrinking middle class.
