Certain mammals have contracted the illness after previously thought to be immune.
The World Health Organisation is raising concerns about the "extraordinarily high" mortality rate bird flu can have in humans.
The spread of H5N1 bird flu has now been recorded in mammals such as cows and goats - which were thought to be immune to the influenza.
According to WHO, 463 human deaths have been caused by bird flu since 2003, putting the case fatality rate at 52%.
Mullingar's Kingston Mills, Professor of Experimental Immunology at Trinity College Dublin, says the risks of bird flu are very real:
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