| Somewhere in Southeast Asia (or Africa, the | | | | pig. |
| Mid-East, Europe etc) . . . | | | | |
| | | | Several days later, the farmer's oldest son |
| A hen clucks and shifts around in her perch. | | | | comes to feed the pig. Heavily infected with |
| She sniffs and sneezes. | | | | the contagious form of lethal bird flu, the |
| | | | pig snorts and sneezes onto the boy. |
| Inside the lining of her respiratory tract | | | | |
| and lungs, millions of influenza viruses -- | | | | Who later rough houses with his friends at |
| commonly called A/H5N1 or bird flu -- are | | | | school, including Pim. |
| infecting her cells and forcing them to | | | | |
| replicate millions more of the virus. | | | | Pim takes the virus home to his father, Yu. |
| | | | |
| This is the same virus that's deadly to | | | | The next day, Yu takes a bus to Bangkok to |
| chickens. People can catch it through close | | | | buy some supplies and equipment for his farm. |
| contact with chickens, but they can not | | | | He spends much of the day talking over his |
| spread it to other people. | | | | order with Mr. Chen, the owner of The White |
| | | | Lotus Farm Store. |
| The hen excretes, her white waste material -- | | | | |
| full of A/H5N1 -- falling to the floor below, | | | | Mr. Chen goes home that evening and spends a |
| mixing in with the dirt and other chicken | | | | lot of intimate time with his wife, who is |
| manure. | | | | leaving tomorrow to spend two weeks visiting |
| | | | relatives in Chicago, U.S.A. |
| The pig below the hen also feels ill. Several | | | | |
| days ago, the farmer who owns them both | | | | When Mrs. Chen boards the early morning Thai |
| sneezed on the pig while feeding her. Now the | | | | Airways flight to Los Angeles, she is not |
| pig has a case of ordinary human flu. It's | | | | aware that 145 kilometers away from her, a |
| not life-threatening to the farmer or the | | | | chicken and a pig are dead . . . and a |
| pig, but it is highly contagious. | | | | farmer's son and his friend are too sick to |
| | | | go to school. |
| Hungry despite her flu, the pig gobbles down | | | | |
| some chicken manure, including some which | | | | Neither do the other 200 passengers who spend |
| contains A/H5N1. | | | | 11 hours breathing the same air as Mrs. Chen. |
| | | | |
| A/H5N1 works its way through the pig's body | | | | The farmers have taken their children to the |
| to the pig's respiratory system. There, it | | | | nearby clinic, which has taken throat samples |
| starts drilling into the pig's cells with its | | | | and sent them to the United Nations World |
| spikes of hemagluttin. | | | | Health Organization laboratories to be |
| | | | tested. |
| There it meets up with a virus of ordinary | | | | |
| flu infecting the pig -- just like two bank | | | | The doctor is worried, because the other |
| robbers who enter the same vault from two | | | | family members are also feeling poorly and so |
| sides. | | | | many of their farm animals have died. He's |
| | | | feeling weak himself. |
| It's not true love, but it's not bad. They | | | | |
| combine genetic material and soon have an | | | | After landing at Los Angeles International |
| offspring who's the best of both of them. | | | | Airport, some of Mrs. Chen's fellow |
| | | | passengers go into Los Angeles. Some of them |
| As contagious between human beings as | | | | go on to flights to Canada, Latin America and |
| ordinary flu. | | | | New York City. A few plan to continue on to |
| | | | London and Paris. Mrs. Chen finds her gate to |
| As lethal to human beings as A/H5N1. | | | | a flight to Chicago. |
| | | | |
| Soon Junior uses the neurasminadse protein | | | | A few days later, WHO and CDC workers fly to |
| spikes on his surface to cut himself loose | | | | the small farming village and the government |
| from the pig's cell he calls home, and makes | | | | imposes a travel ban on the entire province. |
| his way out into the world . . . to infect | | | | |
| his very own cell. | | | | In Chicago, Mrs. Chen has taken to her bed |
| | | | and her relatives are sneezing on their jobs |
| He takes over its genetic material and soon | | | | . . . |
| has instructed the cell to replicate millions | | | | |
| more of himself. | | | | Bird flu could become highly contagious in |
| | | | several ways. Here is one plausible scenario. |
| Soon those viruses are spreading through the | | | | |