The Hindu Business Line : How many roads must one chicken cross?

STORY so far: During one of my routine field visits to places where the company's products are used, I come across the case of Swapan, a victim of kidney commerce. Driven by the desire to go to the root of the problem, I project myself as a prospective `buyer' and, soon enough, I find myself negotiating a `deal' through a broker. ACP Narendra, unlike most cops in movies, takes over the `case', just as we had planned.

Episode 62

I must have been half-dozing in front of the monitor when Gupta came to my seat. "A coffee may help, Swati," he said, and I agreed. "Late night movie?" he asked me when we were in the canteen. "No, Guptaji," I said. "I was pursuing a case." He seemed puzzled, so I narrated my encounter with the organ trade, my visit to the hospital, how a broker approached me, our early-morning trip to the slum, the understanding with the cops, and the bargain at the hut.

"Then? What happened?" Gupta could not wait to hear. But I checked the watch, "Oh, it is already ten minutes. I'll have to get back to my seat." Gupta was insistent, "Finish the story." I said, much to his disappointment, "Perhaps over a lunch, tomorrow."

For readers who are not able to withstand long suspense, let me assure you that the subsequent events happened on predictable lines. Cops rounded up the crook just moments after money changed hands, and retrieved the cash from the poor labourer. Narendra dropped me at my flat, saying, "Hope you'd snatch some sleep before going to office."

I said, "How I wish to be present when you interrogate the broker!" He smiled, and said, "I can recommend your name for bravery award, if you give me some peace now. Bye." Around 9 a.m. he sent me an SMS that spoke about good progress in the questioning of the broker; big names seemed to be involved, and that included a banker too.

*********

Towards afternoon, there was suddenly hyperactivity, in the boss's room. I had gone there to give him a copy of the Q3 results, though Chandru was yet to finalise on a few items. The whole of R&D department seemed to have descended into the room; there were a couple of officials from the government and a senior doctor.

I looked at Gupta who was in a corner, and asked, "Kya?" He said, "Bird flu." I said, "Flew? Birds were supposed to do that?" Gupta was aghast. "Swati, I'll get you an ice-cream if you keep quiet!"

Accountants can be miserable when it comes to current affairs. Which is what I realised when listening to the ongoing discussion on `avian flu' ravaging the world. I have been thinking of numbers and financial statements, profits and results, Q3 and so on, as if world didn't exist beyond the confines of ledger and vouchers. So I decided to lend a careful ear to the proceedings.

"Let us understand that avian influenza or `bird flu' is a contagious disease caused by viruses that normally infect only birds and, less commonly, pigs," explained the doctor. "The disease in birds has two forms. The first causes mild illness — symptoms are ruffled feathers or reduced egg production. The second, more serious, is known as `highly pathogenic avian influenza'. This is extremely contagious in birds and rapidly fatal with a mortality approaching 100 per cent. Birds can die on the same day that symptoms first appear." And I checked my temperature. The doctor continued: "H5N1 has jumped the species barrier and affecting humans. It is a highly pathogenic strain." The boss asked, "What about the existing vaccines?" The ministry official shook his head: "This is a new subtype of virus and we have no vaccines. And we are afraid of the virus mutating and beginning to spread from human to human, with fatal results." I remember having read about how a completely new influenza virus subtype emerged and spread around the world in four to six months, at the beginning of the 20th century. An estimated 40-50 million persons were killed then.

In the middle of the meeting, there was an overseas call. It was from the World Health Organisation. It was again on the same subject. The WHO was seeking cooperation from leading vaccine manufacturers. "We would be sending you a prototype virus for you to work with," they said, wrapping the conversation. We resumed our discussions. "Any luck with the existing medicines?" the boss asked.

The doctor replied: "There are two classes of drugs available. As you know, these are the M2 inhibitors and the neuraminidase inhibitors. But the new virus is resistant to M2 inhibitors. About the other, we are yet to get a clear result." By nature, I paid more attention to sound-bytes that had numbers to offer, such as: "That the virus can survive, at cool temperatures, in contaminated manure for at least three months. In water, the virus can survive for up to four days at 22 degrees Celsius and more than 30 days at 0 degrees Celsius. A single gram of contaminated manure can contain enough viruses to infect one million birds. And that if a person already infected with common human flu (now, it is H3N2, something that reads like a highway number) also acquired the bird flu virus, within that person's body, the two viruses could swap genes.

"Will the WHO send the virus by mail or courier?" I asked. "But before they send, they would remove the lethal portion of the dangerous H5N1 virus by reverse-engineering," said the doctor. If I had asked him what this `reverse' business was, I am sure he would have told me something like, "Reverse genetics allows researchers to assemble designer flu viruses, using biotechnology tools to remove viral traits that make a particular strain lethal, while retaining components that stir antibody responses from the human immune system."

We then sat through a video clip that showed how the miserable birds looked once the flu hit them. The visuals showed millions of chickens getting slaughtered in Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and China in a bid to snuff out the bird virus, after the slaughterers were given a shot of Tamiflu medicine to suppress any human flu virus in their bodies, preventing it from combining with avian viruses shed by the dying birds.

*********

An hour later, I accompanied the team to a nearby poultry farm that regularly exports chicken to the Middle East. "We are getting enquiries from Malaysia after the outbreak of bird flu," the CEO of the poultry told us.

"We export about 40,000 birds per week." I asked, "So many?" He said, "For instance, Chennaiites consume about 40-lakh kg of chicken meat a week." The doctor explained to us, with the help of a hen from the poultry, where one would usually find the symptoms. Luckily, however, these birds were healthy and I felt like singing, "Kokkarako!"

(To be continued)

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