The Bird Flu Hunters

May 12, 2006

By Ullrich Fichtner, Ansbert Kneip and Gerald Traufetter

Bird flu has spread across the globe, but so far it poses little danger to humans. The World Health Organization has launched an ambitious project to battle the pandemic before it jumps the species barrier. The hurdles are many.

Each question about the virus triggers thousands of new questions. "We're in the middle of the problem," says Professor Yuen, a man who clearly has trouble sitting still, as he walks to the blackboard in the windowless conference room in Hong Kong's Queen Mary Hospital. The felt marker in his hand quickly glides across the surface, and within a few minutes the professor has outlined the global history of influenza in black and white. After listing annual figures, along with abbreviations identifying the different strains of the virus -- H2N2, H1N1 -- he taps the hastily written figures and, with the top edge of his glasses forming a line across his pupils, he asks: "And what do we learn from this? We learn that we know nothing, and that every calculation is taken from thin air."

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