The first death from bird flu in the US has been reported: a person in Louisiana who was hospitalized with severe respiratory symptoms.
Louisiana health officials announced the death Monday.
Health officials have said the person was over 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock.
They also said that a genetic analysis had suggested that the bird flu virus had mutated in the patient, which could have led to the more severe illness.
They have released few other details about the person.
There have been 66 confirmed bird flu infections reported in the U.S. since March, but previous illnesses were mild and most were detected among farmworkers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows.
In two cases — and an adult in Missouri and a child in California — health officials have not determined how they contracted it.
The origin of the Louisiana person’s infection was not considered a mystery.
The first US bird flu death has been reported: a person in Louisiana who was hospitalized with severe respiratory symptoms
Your browser does not support iframes.
But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it was the first human case in the U.S. linked to exposure to backyard birds.
Louisiana officials say they are not aware of any other cases in their state, and U.S. officials have said they do not have any evidence that the virus is spreading from person to person.
The H5N1 bird flu has spread widely among wild birds, poultry, cows and other animals.
Its growing presence in the environment increases the chance that people will be exposed and possibly infected, officials say.
Officials continue to urge people who come into contact with sick or dead birds to take precautions, including wearing respiratory and eye protection and gloves when handling poultry.
Infectious disease experts are also alarmed by the numbers. They warn of the scale of cases and any infection outside of birds increases the risk of the virus acquiring mutations, allowing it to spread between people.
Dr. Marc Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri, recently said of
Overall, the figures show that since the virus was discovered in the US in January 2022, more than 12,000 wild and domestic flocks have been infected.
After After the virus spread to cows this year, it was diagnosed in 866 herds in 16 states – the majority of them in California And Colorado.
And this year, 61 cases have now been discovered in people in nine states, the most cases reported in the U.S. in at least two decades. Before the current outbreak, the last human case of bird flu was in 1997.
Your browser does not support iframes.
California has declared a state of emergency due to the emerging bird flu pandemic (a large group of workers wearing protective suits). The above shows workers in the Eden Valley, Minnesota, in 2015. They responded to an outbreak of bird flu on a poultry farm
Your browser does not support iframes.
Nearly all of the patients had direct contact with infected birds or livestock and had only mild symptoms, such as conjunctivitis or pink eye.
However, the tide is starting to turn for those who don’t work with birds or livestock.
In September, a patient in Missouri became the first to become infected without any direct exposure to infected animals. It is unclear how they became ill.
A teenager in California who was not exposed to infected livestock became ill last month.
And the disease can evolve and become more and more dangerous. A strain linked to wild birds has caused serious illness in people, including a patient in Louisiana and a teenager in Canada – who spent at least three weeks in hospital needing help to breathe.
There is no evidence that any of the patients have spread the disease to other patients.
However, the virus has been found in unpasteurized or “raw” milk, leading the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to announce that all companies that process raw milk will be required to share samples for testing upon request.
Many experts, including World Health Organization officials, have criticized the U.S. response to the outbreak.
Experts have described it as a pandemic that is “unfolding in slow motion.” Until last month, almost all testing of cattle and of people exposed to infected cows was voluntary.
Even now, mandatory testing is limited only to livestock moving between state lines.
Sporadic cases have also been recorded in pigs, which is worrying researchers because these animals can contract both human and bird flu variants – and could be ‘mixing vessels’ for a new strain of the bird flu virus.
Your browser does not support iframes.
This map shows cases of the virus detected in wild mammals such as red foxes and seals
And since May 2022, the US has recorded infections among 419 non-avian wildlife, including red foxes, skunks, seals and raccoons.
Experts warned that these animals could contract the virus after eating the carcasses of birds that died of bird flu.
Wastewater surveillance for the virus has also picked up traces at 60 of more than 250 sites monitored in the US.
In California and Iowa, more than 80 percent of samples tested positive.
The US already has a stockpile of about 20 million bird flu vaccines in its national stockpile, officials say, which are “well matched” to the H5N1 virus.
It also has the capacity to quickly earn an additional 100 million if necessary. However, the Biden administration said earlier this month that it has no plans to approve a vaccine.
Stocks of antiviral drugs, such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) – which treated the last American bird flu patient in Louisiana – are also available.
Work continues to develop an avian flu vaccine for poultry and tests to show that human antivirals would work just as well in sick cows.