[Ferret]

Yes the threat of bird flu is still there and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
There are hundreds of different strains of bird flu, just as there are with human flu, and they are all continuously mutating which is why we have to have flu vaccinations every year, unlike with say Polio which is also a virus but much more stable which means we need only on vaccination to protect us all our lives. If your father’s chickens had flu they could be treated, although the chances only one or two birds getting flu at a time is unlikely as all strains tend to be highly infectious they are more likely to have had some other avian infection.
Normally each type of flu stays within its own species or group of species or failing that to either Mammals or Birds, our cells being different enough that the specific flu virus cannot invade the cells of different groups or species. The problem with the H5N1 strain is that it can invade not only different species of birds but can under certain conditions make the jump to humans as well, it has not as far as I am aware yet made the next step which is the ability to spread from human to human but this would be a small step for it considering that it has already managed the species jump among birds.
Have the experts got it wrong, no I don’t think they have the threat is still there and it is not as if this hasn’t happened before the Spanish flu pandemic that swept the planet between March 1918 and June 1920 was caused by the H1N1 bird flue virus, at the time the world population was about ¼ of what it is today and international travel, apart from the troops retuning home after WW1, was a privilege of the rich, it succeed in killing between 50 and 100 million people. The figures make horrific reading 250,000 died in the UK. 400,000 in France, 675,000 in the US and 7 million in India the Fiji Islands lost 14% of its population in two weeks! The infection rate was running at 50% with a death rate between 2 and 20% as against 0.1% in normal flu on top of that the more healthy you were the more likely you where to die as it made your immune system cycle out of control therefore the healthier your immune system was the harder it attacked you! Its attack was swift you could be showing no symptoms in the morning be unable to walk by the evening and dead the next day, H1N5 kills in the same way!
If the government spend a few million on precautions that’s fine by me, and as for the press well as soon as the story cools of and nothing happens they soon loose interest.