It’s been a rough flu season this winter in the United States and Europe, but it could be worse. A lot worse. The flu viruses that are making us sick go by names like H1N1 and H3N2, referring to the kinds of proteins that stud their surface. There’s another sort of flu lurking in other parts of the world, like Egypt, India, and Cambodia, known as H5N1. Since 2003, 615 people have come down with H5N1, and, as of Feburary 1, 364 of them had died. In January alone, 5 people in Cambodia were diagnosed with H5N1. Four of them died.

There’s a lot of debate about precisely how bad H5N1 is. It’s possible that a lot of people are