The United States records its first death linked to bird flu

The Louisiana Department of Health said that an American patient who had been hospitalized with the H5N1 strain of bird flu had died, in the first known human death in the United States due to the virus.

Louisiana health officials said the patient, whose identity has not been determined, was hospitalized on December 18 after coming into contact with chickens and wild birds.

Officials added that the patient is approximately 65 years old and suffers from health problems, making him more vulnerable to serious diseases.

We note data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that nearly 70 people have been infected in the United States with the bird influenza virus since April, most of them farmers, as the virus spread among poultry and herds of dairy cows.

Federal and state officials said the risk to the general public from the virus remains low.

The year 2024 will see a significant rise in the prevalence of many infectious diseases, due in part to climate change, declining vaccination rates and the emergence of new strains of pathogens.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also indicate that the ongoing outbreak of avian influenza, which began appearing in poultry in 2022, has led to the death of approximately 130 million wild birds and poultry and infected 917 dairy cattle herds.

Analysis of the virus taken from the Louisiana patient showed that it belongs to genotype D1.1, the same type that was recently discovered in wild birds and poultry in Washington, in addition to a severe infection recently discovered in a teenager in British Columbia, Canada.

This pattern differs from the B30.3 genotype currently prevalent in dairy cattle in the United States, which has been associated mostly with mild symptoms in human cases including conjunctivitis or pink eye.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the risk to the general public remains low. Experts are looking for signs that the virus is gaining the ability to spread easily from person to person, but the centers said there is no evidence of this.

Louisiana health officials said in a statement that people who work with birds, poultry and cattle, or who come into contact with them for recreational purposes, are at greater risk.

Many experts added that the death was disturbing, but not surprising.

“This is a tragic reminder of what experts have been warning about for months: that H5N1 is a deadly virus,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Epidemiology Center at Brown University School of Public Health.