If i get bird flu, how likely is it that i will get acute respiratory distress syndrome?

Depends on injury: ARDS is characterized by inflammation of the lung parenchyma leading to impaired gas exchange with concomitant systemic release of inflammatory mediators causing inflammation, hypoxemia, and frequently resulting in multiple organ failure. The initial acute lung injury can be lung infection resulting from flu, aspiration, sepsis, multiple trauma, shock, and other insults.

Low: Any influenza carries risk of developing ards, but it's not common. In the most recent h5n1 outbreak patients who were obese had a much greater likelihood of developing ards, but it's still < 1 % of all cases.

Unlikely: This is a rare event. Remember how many people get the bird flu and behaves as the "the flu". But the incidence of developing ARDS is much higher than if you were to get the regular flu.

The H5N1 avian flu..: Is a highly pathogenic influenza agent in birds and in man. Although poorly transmitted from birds to man and from man to man, the death rate is about 50 percent! not all bird flus are like this.