Swine Flu Impact Yet To Be Felt; Threatens Developing Nations
SINGAPORE -(Dow Jones)- Despite dropping from the headlines in recent weeks,
experts warn that the worst human and economic impact of the swine flu pandemic
that started in April may lie ahead.
As infections near 100,000, the novel flu strain, which has killed over 400
people in more than 130 countries and territories, may have already taken an
economic toll.
Worldwide, gross domestic product could be slashed by as much as US$2.5
trillion at the six-month mark in October, U.K.-based Oxford Economics said in a
recent report. That works out to 3.5% of projected global 2009 GDP, it said.
Health experts warn that a second wave of swine flu would likely hit the
Northern Hemisphere during the flu-prone winter months.
On Thursday, the U.S. said that it is pushing ahead with plans for a
government-funded vaccination campaign amid concerns the pandemic will intensify
in the autumn.
"A flu outbreak in the autumn would hit the world economy just as it starts to
recover from the credit crunch," the Oxford report said.
"It would prolong the rise in inflation, threaten already fragile businesses
and put further strains on financial markets and fiscal balances. This could
generate a vicious cycle that postpones the recovery for another couple of
years."
"Another factor that makes a worse scenario quite likely is the fact that the
pandemic would occur around Christmas, when a lot of discretionary spending
takes place," it said.
"Different industries would be affected differently. Those selling
nonessential goods and services would probably be hardest hit," the report said.
Oxford Economics is the commercial arm of Oxford University's business school.
Healthwise, the World Health Organization says that developed countries are
well equipped to combat the swine flu.
The main worry: that the virus may mutate into a more lethal strain, and that
developing countries with poor health infrastructure will find themselves ill-
equipped to fight it.
"Our real concern is the developing countries which have very poor public
health infrastructure and will be at the back of the queue when it comes to
vaccines," said the WHO's Asia-Pacific regional spokesman, Peter Cordingley.
The Philippines, one of the hardest-hit nations in Asia, has asked for as much
as 80% of its entire Health Department's budget to combat swine flu.
Swine flu's destructive potential, rather than its destructive reality, lay
behind the World Health Organization's June 11 decision to declare it a global
pandemic.
"Many developing countries actually go into this pandemic what I call empty-
handed," WHO chief Margaret Chan said at a donor's conference in Geneva earlier
this week. "They don't have antivirals. They don't have vaccines. They don't
have antibiotics."
U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon has asked for $1 billion to battle the
virus.
The original Type A virus, the 1918-9 Spanish Flu, has long represented a
nightmare scenario for epidemiologists. The early 20th century flu outbreak
killed some 50 million people and proved lethal to otherwise healthy young
adults.
In 1918, neither penicillin nor antibiotics had yet been discovered, vaccines
were rarely used and comprehensive public health infrastructure didn't exist.
"There's no resistance to it, it's a completely new virus," Cordingley said of
swine flu. "We do expect the numbers to explode. It's hardly started."
-By Sophie Quinton; Dow Jones Newswires; +65-6415-4202; generaldeskasia@
dowjones.com.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
07-10-090439ET
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