Last week, bird flu cases broke out in Nigeria, the first reported incidence of avian flu in Africa. the country is already ill-equipped to battle the disease in the first place, and control may be hard to put into place.

In a region where where many people keep chickens at their homes for food, experts say any mass killings -- often a first step in controlling bird flu -- would be difficult to conduct.

In an effort to disseminate information regarding the perils of the avian flu, the country has already enlisted the efforts of the volunteers working on vaccinating the population against polio.

"The polio organization has offered to use all its network to deliver information, and also for surveillance and case detection. We are going to support all kinds of activities to mitigate the impact of avian flu," said Mohammed Belhocine, the World Health Organization's representative in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the hunt for speedier and more efficient methods of vaccine production is still underway. Scientists are leaning on the potential of substances called "adjuvants", or substances which are supposed to increase the potency of a vaccine by stimulating the immune system such that it results to a "broader and longer-lasting immunity. While it is still not known how adjuvants produce this effect, private companies are pursuing this potential.

"We are in possession of one of the key ingredients of a potential solution to the pandemic threat," said Howard Pien, president of Chiron Corp. The California biotech firm has an adjuvant, an emulsion called MF59 whose main constituent is shark-liver oil. It is already in use in a flu vaccine in Europe.

"We believe that the adjuvant may become the holy grail of vaccines," Chrystyna Bedrij, an analyst with Griffin Securities, wrote in November in a review of avian flu-related business.

For more on bird flu, read the special report Washington Post is running.