The scenario sends shivers down epidemiologists' spines: in Indonesia a taxi driver develops a fever and dies, the latest victim of the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu. His wife grows ill and also dies. So do his children. And within 10 days so do many of his passengers, victims of a newly mutated virus that has finally found an efficient way to leap among humans.

One of those unlucky passengers is a businessman heading to Jakarta's airport to fly home to Munich. On the first leg to Singapore he passes the virus on to an Australian grandmother sitting next to him and an Indian motorcycle magnate across the aisle.