How serious is Avian Influenza?
There are several different types of avian influenza. The milder forms occur routinely around the world just as human influenza occurs yearly. The more serious form is termed Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) because the disease is much more severe in birds, and it results in high mortality in poultry flocks. The bird flu occurring right now in Asia is an HPAI virus identified as H5N1. Of the millions of people potentially exposed to the virus throughout Asia only a small number have been infected, and those by direct contact with infected live birds. Thus the threat of humans catching the disease directly from other humans is at this time quite rare, if not non-existent, because the virus in its current form has not changed into one that could easily be contracted by humans.
