If the whole world was rattled when avian flu started crossing the species barrier in 2003, it should not be surprising that India stumbled a little. The world is still ill-prepared to battle it, to manufacture known drugs adequately and fast or to quickly produce more effective ones. The World Health Organization is not happy with this, or with the fact that only 40 countries have so far followed its instructions regarding preparedness. India did not do too well in the first shock of discovery, but culling, testing and measures for containment in northern Maharashtra, where it was discovered, were put in place with as much speed as can be expected. Here things take a while to sink in, and the initial testing was unnecessarily slow. With the worst of the shock over, it will be easier to be alert and proactive, and all other states can now get ready with instructions, regular inspections, culling and testing procedures.

The phenomenon of bird flu infecting humans presents a bewildering combination of the gravely serious and slightly comic. For a country such as India, with its size and its huge rural population often very poor, this bewilderment poses serious dangers. There is, according to WHO, a fear of the H5N1 virus changing into one that could be transmitted from one human being to another. With so many countries in Asia affected, the magnitude of such a pandemic can only be imagined. The administration has to be unceasingly watchful, looking out for clusters of people going down with flu symptoms within a small radius and in a short period. For the poor in India, living with illness is routine. To make them realize the seriousness of these apparently everyday symptoms is a huge task. As it would be to persuade children in the countryside not to share their backyards with chickens, or poor farmers their sleeping spaces. At the same time, it is expected that people fortunate to have had an education and a more privileged life do not shiver and sweat at the mention of chickens. There is nothing wrong with chicken properly cooked in all its parts at 70 degrees Celsius and over. There are precautions to be taken with the raw meat, its uncooked juices, and eggs. Precautions are routinely taken with mosquitoes too. Bird flu poses a very serious danger, and requires everyone?s cooperation for its containment. Allowing superstition to overcome the remnants of a scientific education is not the way to go about it.