The director of the Pasteur Institute warns that the avian flu virus could cause a severe pandemic if it undergoes mutations and becomes transmissible between humans.

Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, the director of the respiratory infections center at the Pasteur Institute in France, warned that the avian flu virus could generate a pandemic more severe than COVID-19 if it undergoes mutations that allow it to be transmitted from human to human. Although people have antibodies against seasonal flu H1 and H3, they do not have antibodies against avian flu H5, which would make them vulnerable. Rameix-Welti emphasized that such a pandemic could be extremely serious, but mentioned that, in the case of a mutation, the world would be better prepared than during the coronavirus pandemic. The UN report indicates nearly 1,000 outbreaks of avian flu in humans between 2003 and 2025, with a significant percentage of deaths. Recently, a man in Washington died from the H5N5 virus, marking the first transmission from birds to humans. Avian flu has led to the culling of hundreds of millions of birds, affecting food supply and increasing prices, although human infections remain rare.