Louisiana health officials announced the death of a patient hospitalized in December due to severe bird flu. The 65-year-old man contracted bird flu after being exposed to a flock of backyard birds and wild birds; He had no underlying medical conditions. It is the first death recorded in the United States attributed to the H5N1 virus, or bird flu.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a total of 66 people in the US tested positive for bird flu in 2024. In all other cases, people developed mild symptoms and recovered completely. But the Louisiana case is a stark reminder that the H5N1 virus can be dangerous. And as the number of human infections increases, health experts fear more serious cases and potentially more deaths.
“It is a continuous game of Russian roulette: the more viruses there are in our environment, the more likely it is to come into contact with humans. It was a matter of time before bird flu became deadly,” says doctor Nahid Bhadelia. , founding director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University.
An outbreak that shows no signs of stopping
Since January 2022, the H5N1 virus has infected more than 130 million birds, including commercial ones. In April 2024 it was extended to dairy cows for the first time. Although not fatal to cows, the virus has sickened more than 900 dairy herds in 16 states.
Most people who get bird flu are farm workers or other people who have direct contact with sick animals. Of the 66 infections confirmed in the US last year, 40 had exposure to dairy cows, while 23 had exposure to poultry and slaughter operations. In the other three cases, the exact source of exposure is unknown.
Since 2003, more than 850 human cases of H5N1 bird flu have been reported outside the United States, and about half of them have been fatal. In a statement released Monday, the CDC said a death from H5N1 bird flu “is not unexpected due to the virus’s known potential to cause serious illness and death.” Federal health officials say the risk of contracting bird flu remains low for the general public, and there is no evidence that it is spreading from person to person anywhere in the country.
One of the peculiar aspects of the current outbreak in the US is why all human infections so far have resulted in mild illness. “Maybe it’s because they are young, healthy people,” says Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center and professor of epidemiology at Brown University. He explains that the form of exhibition is different from what is historically known: “There are several hypotheses, but at this moment they are only conjectures.”
Another case worth analyzing
Nuzzo says it’s entirely possible that the Louisiana patient’s pre-existing health conditions contributed to the severity of his illness, but he also points to the case of a teenager in Canada who was hospitalized with bird flu in November. The 13-year-old girl was treated in a British Columbia emergency room for fever and conjunctivitis in both eyes.she was discharged without treatment and later developed cough, vomiting, and diarrhea.
A few days later he returned to the emergency room with breathing problems. He was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit and went into respiratory failure, but eventually recovered after receiving treatment. According to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicinethe young woman had a history of mild asthma and a high body mass index. It is unknown how he contracted the virus. “What this tells us is that we have no idea who is going to develop mild illness and who is going to develop severe illness, and that’s why we have to take these infections very seriously. We shouldn’t assume that all future infections will be mild,” says Nuzzo.
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