Pandemic Flu
Will the virus that causes bird flu develop the ability to move from person to person?
(This video is no longer available for streaming.) In 1918, bird flu randomly acquired the gene for coughing and sneezing. This version of the bird flu didn't do much to birds, but when it somehow made the jump into people, it killed up 50 million people worldwide. Could this happen again, with the H5N1 avian flu? In this video, NOVA scienceNOW host Robert Krulwich talks to Kanta Subbarao of the National Institutes of Health about the threat.