Last Flu Season Was Mild, But Child Deaths Worrying

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The best way to protect yourself from flu is to get vaccinated, experts said. "We had a good flu year. But that was last year," Katz noted.

In terms of the H5N1 bird flu virus, from December 2003 to mid-July 2007, 319 cases of bird flu in humans were reported to the World Health Organization. Among these cases, 60 percent (192) were fatal. To date, no human cases of bird flu have been reported in the United States.

All human cases were reported from Asia (Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Laos, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam) and Africa (Djibouti, Egypt, and Nigeria).

But, "the threat of an avian flu pandemic still looms," Katz said. "To date, deaths from avian flu have been few, and limited to Asia. But no one knows for sure when that might change."

Siegel, author of Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic, noted that although H5N1 has a high mortality rate, "we see year after year that it is confined to birds. There is no indication that it is about to become a massive human problem. There is no indication that it is on the verge of transforming."

More information

For more on flu, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.