Three Days With a Bird Flu Sleuth
A WHO Epidemiologist Probes The Death of a Jakarta Nurse As Fears of Viral Mutation Grow

JAKARTA, Indonesia The maroon minivan had just edged into morning traffic, but passenger Gina Samaan, a field investigator for the World Health Organization, admitted she was already a bit worried.

This much was for sure, she said, reviewing the case from the back seat on an excursion one day last month. A 29-year-old Jakarta woman hospitalized with acute pneumonia had died two days before, and the early diagnosis was bird flu. Her samples had tested positive for the avian influenza virus at a government laboratory and another, little-publicized lab run by the U.S. Navy across from the capital's main prison. ...