Between 1959 and 1997, only two people suffered documented infections by avian viruses; neither victim died. But in 1997, an H5N1 avian influenza virus, the so-called bird flu, killed six of eighteen people in Hong Kong. Millions of fowl were slaughtered in an unsuccessful effort to wipe it out, and it reemerged with a vengeance in 2003. Since then, H5N1 and more recently an H7N9 avian virus have been infecting humans at previously unknown rates. Between 2003 and 2017—the latest numbers as I write this—these viruses have infected 2,342 people and killed 1,053 of them—a case fatality rate of
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