This shit is a lot scarier than you think.

Asia's economies risk a multi-billion dollar meltdown if bird flu starts spreading through direct human transmission, experts warn.

At present, the casualties have been rural farmworkers and their families, infected by contact with chickens.

However, human-to-human infection could threaten as big a travel and trade standstill as that which accompanied the Sars respiratory virus in 2003.

Human-to-human infection doesn't seem to have happened yet, but if it does?

Although it has not happened yet, the so-called 'bird flu' presents a risk of evolving into an efficient and dangerous human pathogen," the three agencies warned.

"This is a serious global threat to human health," said WHO Director General Lee Jong-wook.

"This time, we face something we can possibly control before it reaches global proportions if we work co-operatively and share needed resources. We must begin this hard, costly work now."

You'll be hearing more about this soon, unfortunately.