Avian influenza, known informally as avian flu or bird flu, is a variety of influenza caused by viruses adapted to birds. The type with the greatest risk is highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Bird flu is similar to swine flu, dog flu, horse flu and human flu as an illness caused by strains of influenza viruses that have adapted to a specific host. Out of the three types of influenza viruses (A, B, and C), influenza A virus is a zoonotic infection with a natural reservoir almost entirely in birds.Avian influenza, for most purposes, refers to the influenza A virus.

Though influenza A is adapted to birds, it can also stably adapt and sustain person-to-person transmission. Recent influenza research into the genes of the Spanish flu virus shows it to have genes adapted from both human and avian strains. Pigs can also be infected with human, avian, and swine influenza viruses, allowing for mixtures of genes (reassortment) to create a new virus, which can cause an antigenic shift to a new influenza A virus subtype which most people have little to no immune protection against.

Avian influenza strains are divided into two types based on their pathogenicity: high pathogenicity (HP) or low pathogenicity (LP). The most well-known HPAI strain, H5N1, was first isolated from a farmed goose in Guangdong Province, China in 1996, and also has low pathogenic strains found in North America. Companion birds in captivity are unlikely to spread the virus and there has been no report of a companion bird with avian influenza since 2003. Pigeons can carry avian strains, but rarely become ill and are incapable of transmitting the virus efficiently to humans or other animals.

Learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza and https://portal.nebih.gov.hu/gyik/allat/gyakran-ismetelt-kerdesek/madarinfluenza

https://www.oie.int/fileadmin/Home/eng/Health_standards/tahm/3.03.04_AI.pdf