H7N9 not only endanger human health but also hit stock marketing

Jiang, Yan; Zhang, Yi; Ma, Chunna; Wang, Quanyi; Xu, Chao; Donovan, Connor; Ali, Gholam; Xu, Tan; Sun, Wenjie

New or reemerging infectious diseases with the potential to cause severe epidemics or pandemics are increasingly prevalent [1, 2] . The emergence of new infectious diseases are not only a threaten to human health, but also cause large economic loss [3] . For example, according to Kumar, Fan and Melzer-Lange, in East and Southeast Asia under two SARS outbreaks, losses amounted to between US$12.3billion and US$28.4 billion [4] . The novel avian influenza A (H7N9), a new emergency infectious disease with a high fatality rate in humans [5] and initially reported in China in March, 2013 has had large economic impacts of H7N9 including over $6.5 billion lost in the agriculture sector due to changes in prices, consumer confidence and trade volumes [6] . The stock market is sensitive to economic indicators and is widely used as a proxy for economic performance [7] . Thus, huge economic losses attributed to H7N9 could be expected to be spontaneously reflected in stock markets in effects.