Current strains of bird flu are “poorly suited for pandemic potential,” said Dr. Shira Doron, a Tufts Medicine infectious disease expert.

With reports of the first human death from bird flu in the US, some Americans are feeling an uncomfortable flashback to the early days of Covid-19, when infectious disease experts were talking about a new virus that was sending people to the hospital with respiratory infections.

A recent bird flu death has sparked fears that a "brand-new virus" could potentially mutate under the right conditions and lead to a "global pandemic"

Bobbi Pritt, a professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic, has opened up about conditions required for bird flu to pass from person to person.

A variant of the virus caused disease in people in 1997, when there was a small but deadly outbreak in Hong Kong. Eighteen people had confirmed diagnoses, and six of them died. Since then, there have been sporadic cases around the world—but no large outbreaks.

The first person in the U.S. just died from a strain of the virus in Louisiana, but there’s still some simple ways to stay safe.

Samples taken from the first patient who died from bird flu show that a strain of the virus has “mutated” to infect humans more effectively. A patient - hospitalised last month in Louisiana - died after the H5N1 strain of avian influenza infected the individual.