WELLINGTON, July 15, 2009 (AFP) - The economic impact of swine flu will be "relatively mild", the New Zealand central bank said in a report as new cases of the disease were confirmed in the Pacific region Wednesday.

Both the Marshall Islands and Tonga reported their first cases of the A(H1N1) virus to join the growing ranks of Pacific islands affected by swine flu.

In New Zealand, nine people have died among 1,984 confirmed cases of the disease, which the World Health Organization has said is unstoppable.

However, the New Zealand health ministry has projected there will be fewer than 200 deaths among the population of four million, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has released a paper suggesting it will have a limited macroeconomic impact.

"We appreciate there is a real human cost to influenza, as this strain is already unfortunately demonstrating," Reserve Bank assistant governor John McDermott said.

Bank analysts estimated a baseline decline in production of 0.62 percent in the first year after the outbreak.

"Our preferred baseline case is predicated on recent ministry of health assumptions that suggest less than 200 swine flu deaths," researchers Martin Fukac and Kirdan Lees said in their report.

"We find relatively mild declines in output of, at most, 0.62 percent cumulated over the first year after the outbreak."

They cited earlier studies of the 1918 pandemic, which killed 650,000 people in the United States alone.

Most of the deaths happened in a single month, and while the human toll was great, it did not really affect production, they said.

"The broad pattern of data from historical episodes does not support large impacts on output from outbreaks of influenza."

In the Marshall Islands, President Litokwa Tomeing, in a public address to the nation of 55,000, urged the public "not to panic" after the first four cases of swine flu were detected.

Health officials are concerned about the possible rapid spread in the crowded capital of Majuro where an estimated 32,000 people live on about six square miles of land.

Radio and TV Tonga News reported Wednesday that two people had also tested positive for swine flu in the Pacific kingdom.

The head of public health, Dr. Malakai 'Ake said one of the infected women had arrived from Australia and the other was a local resident.

Tonga and the Marshall Islands join Guam, Palau, Fiji, Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia with confirmed cases in the Pacific islands.