Hong Kong gets a surprisingly clean bill of health from BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson in the fourth and final episode of his series on where the apocalypse could hail from.
Having already recounted the cataclysmic dangers of environmental disasters, war and organised crime, Simpson turns our fears to disease in The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (BBC World, 8.30pm).
Two years ago, the world was apparently a plane flight away from disaster if Hong Kong's bird flu bug had escaped any further from the chicken coop and infected the travelling public. Despite the furore surrounding the slaughter of the SAR's chickens at the time, Simpson is full of praise for how this small, 'well-administered' territory handled the crisis and averted global disaster.
Influenza, in particular its most virulent hybrid strains, poses the greatest threat to the world. Fifty million people died in the 1918 outbreak. The World Health Organisation believes a similar strain is certain to break out soon. The bird flu was a close call.
Simpson also visits the Ivory Coast, to report on deadly diseases incubating in Africa, including the Ebola virus, which causes the body to haemorrhage. HIV is also thought to have spread from this continent.
One of the great tragedies of America is how many stories can be told like tonight's Frontline: The Killer At Thurston High (World, 10pm). In the past two years there have been too many cases, from Arkansas to Colorado, of kids killing other kids at school.
