"It's a very, very distinct possibility."

This terrifying prognosis arrives via science writer David Quammen, who accurately (or not, conspiracy theorists) predicted that a Chinese wet market would produce a contagious, world-affecting disease.

"I have high concerns about bird flu. If you're going to make a prediction about what would be the next big one now, a scientist would probably say, well, bird flu has the best chance of being our next pandemic virus," he told MailOnline.

"But there's always a lot of randomness built into this because these viruses have high mutation rates and mutation is basically a random process."

This comes after the H5N1 strain of avian flu, which was originally detected three years ago, wiped out close to 170 million poultry birds in the US, with at least 70 confirmed human contractions.

Quammen - author of 15 books and published by the likes of National Geographic, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker - went on to reveal: "Just the way the Covid virus went from being a rare virus to being a virus in humans and in wildlife all over the planet, that could happen starting tomorrow with bird flu."

H5N1 has already travelled across species, from cats to raccoons, to wild dogs, bears and even dolphins, yet the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims the risk of human transmission remains low.

Other experts, however, warn that mutations could increase the chances of transmission, with Quammen adding: "It might take four or five mutations of just the right combination to do that, and each of those mutations is a highly improbable event. And the combination of the right four or five is therefore an even more improbable event. But with the virus mutating rapidly, the risk could be growing.

"Bird flu is replicating itself by the billions in each individual bird that it infects - probably every day. My sense is this virus is replicating itself around the world continually right now, in millions of wild birds, in probably millions of chickens and in quite a few cows and other mammals. All of those replications, each individual viral replication in each animal, is a spin of the roulette wheel.

"I'm not saying it's a certainty that bird flu will be our next pandemic; I'm just saying that it's a very, very distinct possibility."