P/dext. it is a genuine concern as the WHO has raised its pandemic alert level over the virus to phase 4, indicating the infection could spread between humans to cause "community-level outbreaks".
"Jeremy Batstone-Carr, head of private client research at Charles Stanley, said the flu scare partly triggered the sell-off after recent strong gains.
"It's my sense that the impact (of the flu) on the global economy is limited. However, if I am wrong and the situation does escalate, the potential for an outbreak ... to have a very negative, potentially even catastrophic impact on the global economy can't be ruled out," he said."
