Bird Flu Could Mutate Into Pandemic Worse Than COVID, Warns Leading French Scientist

HuffPost • November 27, 2025 • health

Key Points:

The head of France’s Institut Pasteur respiratory infections centre warned that the bird flu virus, currently spreading among birds and mammals, could cause a pandemic worse than COVID-19 if it mutates to allow human-to-human transmission.
Unlike common seasonal flu strains, humans have no antibodies against the H5 bird flu strain, which can also severely affect healthy individuals, including children, making a potential bird flu pandemic potentially more severe than COVID-19.
Although human infections with H5 bird flu have occurred, often from close contact with infected animals, the risk of a human pandemic remains low according to experts from the World Organisation for Animal Health.
The world is better prepared for a potential bird flu pandemic than it was for COVID-