A year ago, bird flu was in the news nearly every day. The drumbeat of a pandemic threat was growing louder. Health officials hurried preparation plans.
Today, bird flu seems more like the punchline of a joke.
But experts say it remains just as dangerous – and just as able to cause a worldwide outbreak of flu like none seen since 1918, when as many as 50 million people died.
“The reality is this virus is continuing to spread,” said Christopher Olsen, a virologist at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. “It’s continuing to infect birds. It’s continuing to kill human beings.”