What viruses causes bird flu?

Answer 1

A Type A influenza virus causes Avian "bird" Flu. The specific virus strains of bird flu that infect humans are called Avian influenza, A-H5N1 virus and Avian influenza, A-H7N9 (newly identified in humans near Easter Sunday 2013 in China). Viruses can change or mutate over time. The strain of avian bird flu that caused the scare in Europe was H5N1. There are many different types (subtypes) of this virus, but the one that has been in the news the most is H5N1 because it infects not only birds but can also infect humans, killing them in 50 to 60% of the cases. It is not easily transmitted from person to person, so it has not spread in humans like other types of influenza have so far.

Additional information:

Although they can be considered organisms, they are not living organisms, for that reason not all scientists classify a virus as a "microbe". Most of them do for lack of a better way to talk about them instead of "germ" or other less specific nomenclature. As stated above, unlike the other organisms called microbes, they are not living organisms. They are specialized groups of "cells" that perform functions working in an organized way, but they latch on to and break into a living host's cells and use the life, energy, and nutrients from the host in an almost parasitic way. The genetic material that they have stored inside themselves combines with that of the host's cells to cause the host cells to stop reproducing more cells like itself for the host. Instead, the virus instructs them to start making duplicate viruses like the one that invaded the host.

H5N1 is an extremely virulent influenza virus that can infect birds, occasionally pigs, rarely infections in other animals, and very rarely humans. Fortunately, it does not spread very easily, and only extremely rare human to human transmissions have been known to occur. No instance of the virus spreading beyond a first generation of close human contacts has been reported. It does, however, have a very high mortality rate in animals and in humans (60% Death Rate in humans).

Answer 2

H5N1