Since the global market went down the drain in October last year, a recovery plan was put in place. This was basically clutching on straws. Six months later, previously unsuspecting Third World countries are now feeling the economic pinch.

According to Donald Kiberuka, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), predictions are that economic growth in the East African Community region will fall to a whopping 2 percent from the current 7 percent growth.

Since earlier predictions were that poorer economies would not for at least eighteen months feel the effect of the economic downturn, the harsh reality is that it took only six months to knock these nations out of a wish-wish situation.

The irony of this whole situation is that when the Lehman Brothers went up in flames, taking down the global market with them, no one expected it. This is just similar to what is happening now - swine flu.

Who could think that something like this ‘Pig- Flu’ would claim so many lives in a matter of days? Living with domestic animals, or if not enjoying all the pork and bacon that swine provide, it’s heartbreaking to think they would this minute be the main highway to people’s graves.  

More still, fears that this outbreak, if not contained sooner, will brew into a global pandemic. This would definitely weigh us down even more when taken with the strain of the global financial crisis.

Since no African country has registered cases of the ‘Pig- Flu’, they only have to worry about sustaining their economies.

With fears that the global recession might lead to global poverty, hence derailing any plans and targets of eradicating poverty by 2015, the need to donate and give more aid to poorer nations to avert the double crisis of the swine-flu and the economic meltdown become even more urgent.

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