Avian flu is a form of influenza that often kills domesticated poultry such as chickens and turkeys. Some strains of bird flu can make humans sick, too. The most dangerous is H5N1, which has caused at least 10 human deaths during the current outbreak. H5N1 first jumped the species barrier from birds to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, when six out of 18 infected people died. The fear is that H5N1 could combine with a human-flu strain to create a deadly virus that's so contagious it could cause a human pandemic.
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