Over 150 people have already lost their lives in Mexico, the US and elsewhere, prompting the World Health Organisation to proclaim the flu as a 'public health emergency of international concern'. While the mad cow and bird flu could pass on from animals to humans through either direct contact with the diseased animals or on consumption of the under-cooked flesh of sick livestock, the swine flu virus A-H1N1 is easily transmittable from animals to humans and vice versa.
