Five year old Edgar Enrique Hernandez in Mexico was the first confirmed case of H1N1 on April 2. “Swine flu” has now spread around the world, and by May 25 more than 12,000 people were confirmed to have contracted H1N1 influenza in 43 countries. 86 people have died. Eighteen US soldiers in Kuwait were the first confirmed cases of swine flu in the Gulf Cooperation Council in mid-May. Around the same time, an Emirati citizen was diagnosed with the flu after having traveled to Canada and back. He became the first confirmed case of a GCC national contracting the virus. In another a sign of the growing fear in the region, a journalist from Executive was even briefly detained by Syrian medical personnel as he was recently leaving Lebanon and examined for symptoms of influenza. How these cases will affect the regional economy has yet to be seen, but the
