Heres something to frighten you

The Intellectual Property Fight That Could Kill Millions

The hothouse environment of Indonesia is ground zero for a potential bird flu pandemic. But a fight over ownership of flu genes is blocking the efforts to track deadly infections on the move.

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Of the 141 human bird flu cases in Indonesia reported to the WHO, 115 people have died, a death rate of more than 80 percent. Put another way, bird flu in Indonesia is about 8,000 times as deadly as the swine flu virus now making the rounds, according to global health expert Laurie Garrett of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

As frightening as these statistics seem, the figures are based on spotty reporting from Indonesia’s Health Ministry, which means the actual number of infections and deaths might be substantially higher. Through the first three quarters of 2009, Indonesia failed to report any flu cases at all, even though the Food and Agriculture Organization (a body of the United Nations that monitors avian influenza in birds) has found the infection to be deeply entrenched among fowl in 31 of the country’s 33 provinces and endemic in Java, Sumatra, and Bali.

Now, if this spreads to the first world, will it be as deadly? Most likely it won’t. However, it will be much more deadly than swine flu.