Inside the Fight Against a Flu Pandemic

More than 2 billion people worldwide could get it. Hundreds of schools may shut down. And 160 million Americans will need to be vaccinated — twice

Photograph by Art Streiber for TIME

A boy going to school wearing a surgical mask to prevent being contaminated by swine flu.

As they have for most of the past 87 years, hundreds of children from across the Eastern seaboard arrived in June at Camp Modin in Belgrade, Maine, carrying flip-flops, sleeping bags and swimsuits. But they also carried something new. First there was one fever, then six, then nine campers in a single day. By the end of the first full week, dozens of kids were sleeping on state-issued cots in a specially quarantined cabin, waiting out a pandemic flu virus that is barnstorming its way across the globe. Camp Modin was not alone; so far this summer, at least 80 camps...

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