Economists say it is too early to estimate how much Ebola and its consequences will affect Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic growth, but damage seems inevitable, Reuters reports.

From Accra to Windhoek, fear of the Ebola epidemic has resulted in cancellations of investment and business events, threatening to tarnish the continent’s hard-won image as a rising economic star.

“These kinds of perceptions do matter, particularly when we’re talking about markets which people really don’t have a good sense about,” Amit Khandelwal, a professor at the Columbia Business School, told Reuters.

Despite the absence of confirmed cases in East Africa, Korean Air Lines suspended flights to and from Nairobi Thursday, citing Ebola.

Brazilian executives cancelled a trip to Namibia, which is about as far from the West African epicenter of the ebola outbreak as at least one Brazilian city.

Also canceled: a meeting of land surveyors in Lagos, Nigeria; an Association of African Central Banks meeting in Equatorial Guinea; and a managers’ meeting of chocolate maker Barry Callebaut scheduled in Ivory Coast, Reuters reports.

Nigeria is fighting to contain its Lagos outbreak.

“If (Ebola) spreads rapidly in Nigeria, I think that’s going to be a much bigger issue because of the density of the population there, the size of the country,” Khandelwal told Reuters. He focuses on international investment and trade in emerging markets.

A partner in an environmental management company said Chinese expats he had recruited were refusing to come. A Nigerian oil company executive told Reuters he had temporarily moved himself and his family to London.

Africans themselves are taking precautions. In Accra, the government announced a three-month moratorium on international conferences “which have the potential of spreading the Ebola virus,” Reuters reports.

Even when logic suggests the risk is low, negative perceptions about the disease can make visitors and would-be investors pause over their travel and commitment plans, experts told Reuters.

“Business opportunities will win out in the end,” said Charlie Robertson, Global Chief Economist at investment bank Renaissance Capital. He predicts the African economy will grow from $2 trillion in 2012 to $29 trillion by 2050, greater than the output of the U.S. and eurozone.