bird flu could make the pandemic worse than covid-19

The avian flu virus, which has spread among wild birds, poultry and mammals, could lead to a pandemic worse than Covid-19 if it mutates and becomes transmissible between humans, said the head of the respiratory infections center at the Pasteur Institute in France.

Highly pathogenic, bird flu has led to the culling of hundreds of millions of birds in recent years, disrupting food supplies and driving up prices, although infections in humans remain rare.

“What we fear is that the virus will adapt to mammals, and particularly humans, becoming capable of person-to-person transmission, and that this virus will become pandemic,” Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, medical director of the Pasteur Institute’s center for respiratory infections, told Reuters.