Another cause for concern: flu season is underway in the U.S., and as seasonal influenza virus goes around, “humans, ourselves, could be a mixing vessel,” Davis says. If a person were simultaneously infected with bird flu and seasonal flu, the two viruses could theoretically combine to create a more transmissible strain.

Viruses work by taking control of our cells and carefully reprogramming them into machines to make more viruses. Because of this, a virus infecting a new host species is like someone trying to win an argument by shouting at people in a language that they can’t understand. And this is where pigs come in.

A teenager in British Columbia was hospitalized in critical condition with the disease, and officials were working to find out how the person was exposed to the virus.

An island halfway between South Africa and Antarctica, where half of the world’s wandering albatrosses breed, is under threat from a fast-spreading strain of bird flu.

In what is believed to be Canada's first human case of bird flu, a teenager is in a British Columbia children's hospital in critical condition with a presumptive case of the virus, the CBC reports. Authorities say the unnamed teen developed symptoms Nov.

A person has tested positive in British Columbia, Canadian health officials said, though the results must be sent to another lab for confirmation.