Four Dead, Millions Hang in the Balance

Indonesia is trying to avert a pandemic of bird-flu. Already reporting four dead, another nine afflicted, millions of lives are uncertain, without enough vaccine. Speculation is that there is a window of 21 days to get control of this human-to-human contracted disease before an epidemic of mass proportion begins. Throughout Asia, more than 140 million chickens, since winter 2003, have died, due to disease, or been culled as the propagators of the disease and more than 50 human deaths resulted. Millions of human lives around the world are in jeopardy if the bird-flu continues spreading.