Right now, the average person has very little risk of contracting bird flu, but whether that could change at some point depends on whether two viruses meet in the wrong animal.
The virus currently circulating is a strain of H5N1 flu (the letters and numbers refer to certain proteins on its surface). It’s highly lethal in chickens and other poultry, and millions of birds have had to be euthanized in Colorado and across the nation after their flocks were infected. That’s a major factor in the sharp increase in egg prices in recent months.
Only a handful of human cases have been reported, all in people who worked with poultry or had backyard flocks. This type of H5N1 isn’t well suited to spread between humans, but it has infected other mammals.
