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Scientists have been keeping an eye on bird flu ever since it was first discovered nearly 30 years ago.

In the past three years, outbreaks of bird flu, formally called highly pathogenic avian influenza, in wild animals spilled over to dairy cows and poultry, infecting several dozen humans and even killing one American.

Other than the report of a child death from H5N1 bird flu in Durango, Mexico on April 8, and of another child, in India's Andhra Pradesh state, who died March 15, there has been seemingly little in the news about H5N1 bird flu.

Statistics for human cases have remained unchanged since the start of the year, when an elderly resident of Louisiana became the first human to die of H5N1 bird flu in the United States.

In fact, the CDC says that there have been 70 US human cases, and that number seems to not have changed either, despite recent testing of a child in San Francisco who was found to have H5N1 bird flu, and a recent case in Ohio.