What Is Bird Flu?
Avian flu is caused by a form of influenza virus that usually only infects birds and sometimes infects pigs. The few people who have become sick or died from the bird flu had direct contact with infected birds.
Like the flu that affects humans, there are lots of different strains (varieties) of bird flu. Some only cause mild symptoms in birds, such as reduced egg production. Other strains are more dangerous to birds — they spread quickly, cause more severe symptoms, and almost always kill the birds.
The strain of bird flu that has infected people in Asia and the Middle East recently is called H5N1. H5N1 is one of the strains that are dangerous to birds.
The people who became infected with the H5N1 strain of avian flu caught it directly from birds. It has not been proven that H5N1 can be spread from person to person.
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