Bird flu (H5N1) is a particularly deadly strain of flu that could have turned into a pandemic, if not for the hard work of government health ministries and scientists. If we're not careful, it still could.
Not true. There is nothing presently that has been done nor can be done to prevent a H5N1 derived strain leading to a pandemic. All that could be done would be measures to minimize the rate and extent of spead, and basically give as many people as possible anti-virals. It just happens to be that at this point in time the H5N1 has not evolved in a direction that enables efficiently spread between humans. This could eventually occur by genetic drift (chance), which does happen somewhat quickly in viruses. More likely though is antigenic shift driven by RNA re-assortment with another Influenza virus, and could occur in a host infected by both, whereby those parts of the viral genome that encode antigenic proteins are derived from a human strain, and other parts that play a role in virulence come from H5N1. History suggests that this will occur again, fortunately it seems to be a rare event.
The swine flu, A H1N1, is not particularly virulent in its current form, though co-infections in people with another Influenza A virus could potentially change that. Or might not.
