ARTE Distribution

This first documentary covers the growth of the virus, the knowledge that the scientific community has of H5N1, its mode of propagation, and also its possible mutation and the risk of recombination with the human flu virus.

Bird flu is a very real threat, forecast by the least worried of scientists to arrive in the next twenty years, and possibly well before then. The estimated figures total 20 million deaths throughout the world. Suddenly these figures remind us of ancient plagues which we thought had died out.
 

Filmed mainly in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, the countries which harbour the greatest numbers of victims, but also in Holland, where the first European cases of infection have been observed, this first documentary, enlightened by the comments of epidemiologists François Bricaire and Albert Osterhaus (Holland), covers the growth of the virus, the knowledge that the scientific community has of H5N1, its mode of propagation, and also its possible mutation and the risk of recombination with the human flu virus. We visit the Asian live animal markets, observe the close proximity between man and animals, witness the observation of samples by researchers in Hanoi and Surabaya, and follow the course of viral propagation on the main migratory flight paths.
 

At each stage of the enquiry, scientific explanations are accompanied by 3D animations, based on real images to clarify the biological and epidemiological mechanisms.