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Hong Kong Fights a Scary Flu Bug

Last May, a 3-year-old boy in Hong Kong, a region of China, came down with the flu. Doctors discovered that the boy had a kind of flu that usually infects chickens and other birds but not humans. They were worried. Did the "bird flu" now pose a big threat to people?

The boy died, and so did three other Hong Kong residents who caught the bird flu. Sixteen more people have it, all of them in Hong Kong.

"This is serious," said Keiji Fukuda, a flu specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. Fukuda is one of many doctors studying the deadly sickness.

Many people catch milder flu bugs each year. Usually it takes only a few days of bed rest to get better. But doctors know that this flu in Hong Kong is different. It can kill, and they're racing to stop it.

Hong Kong's leaders decided not to take any chances. Two weeks ago, they ordered the killing of every single one of Hong Kong's 1.3 million chickens. No new birds will be allowed into Hong Kong for at least a month.

Since the chickens were killed, not one new case of bird flu has been found. But doctors from many nations are working on a vaccine to prevent it, just in case.

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