Bird flu could be 'world's deadliest virus'

A GLOBAL epidemic of bird flu could dwarf history’s worst infection disaster, which killed between 20 and 40 million people, an expert has warned.

The H5N1 influenza strain that has already killed 42 has a fatality rate of 76 per cent, cases so far suggest.

The virus which caused the 1918 pandemic killed only 1 per cent of those it infected, said Dr Nancy Cox, of the US Centres for Disease Control.