Influenza unlikely to hit economic recovery

The swift dissemination of information on the influenza A(H1N1) throughout the world in the past few days has caused concern that the outbreak of the virus previously labeled as swine flu would strike a deadly blow to global economic recovery.

Due to the panicky response to the news, stock markets worldwide had plunged, and tourism and aviation shares were hit hard, be it in the United States, Europe or Asia. The stock market appears to have overreacted to the outbreak of the flu, which was first confirmed in Mexico and then detected in the US and some other countries.

However, in a globalized international community that is able to rapidly mobilize global resources to tackle any emergency crisis, the outbreak of the flu is not expected to impact too much on the steering of the world economy towards its much-anticipated recovery. In a full-blown information society, any piece of news in one country would soon spread to the rest of the world once it is posted on the Internet.