Asia is in for a Big Swine Flu Year – the Case for India

Posted By Damjan DeNoble

A few days ago I presented a case for the under reporting of swine flu cases in mainland Asia.  I did not touch on India in that article, but as of July 20th it has only 112 confirmed cases of swine flu.  This would put it well South of any reasonable predictions of swine flu prevalence.    Reader, Tej Dehol, who doubles as editor of the very good Clearstate Health Blog sent in an article from May 2009, titled “India Prepared for Swine Flu Outbreak: WHO”.

In May of 2009 India had no reported cases of Swine Flu but did have a reporting mechanism in place.  Oddly enough, however, the above article, while pointing out WHO’s praise of India’s efforts up to that point has the following to add about the potential adverse impact a swine flu outbreak would have on India’s economy.

However, the swine flu scare may adversely impact investment and business confidence in India, the research arm of rating agency Moody’s said on Thursday. “The swine flu scare will likely weigh on wider economic activity such as household consumption and business investment,” Sharman Chan, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com, said.

“Tourism and trade, which already began to show signs of fatigue in the December quarter, may experience a further blow. Asset prices are bound to retreat if the outbreak worsens and discourages investment,” Chan added.

According to Moody’s Economy.com, although India itself may not have upset investors, a general decline in confidence worldwide could spark repatriation of funds from stock markets. “This will not only be a drag on stock prices, but will again exert downward pressure on the rupee,” Chan added.

I am unabashedly suspicious of India’s ability to monitor and contain a swine flu outbreak of any sort.  There is a whole host of evidence about the country’s flailing health infrastructure upon which my suspicion’s rest.

Nevertheless, this is all together different than saying that a country is making a deliberate and sustained effort to under-report the flu – the evidence for that is not so prevalent, and so far all I can make arguments on is circumstantial evidence (like in the article here) and hearsay.  So it is that the article excerpt above adds to that body of circumstantial evidence by pointing out that there are definite economic consideration for keeping swine flu counts low.  And, that these considerations are of particular importance to countries whose stability depends in some part on breakneck economic growth.