US records first bird flu death in latest outbreak

Louisiana patient becomes first victim of H5N1 after infection spread from wild birds

This 2005 electron microscope image shows an avian influenza A H5N1 virion. CDC via AP

A patient in a Louisiana hospital has become the first H5N1-related human fatality in the latest US bird flu outbreak, authorities said on Monday.

The person was reported by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in mid-December as the “first instance of severe illness linked” to avian flu in the US.

The Louisiana Department of Health said the patient was over 65 years old and had underlying medical conditions. It is not clear if those characteristics contributed to their hospital admission for severe illness.

“The patient contracted H5N1 after exposure to a combination of a non-commercial backyard flock and wild birds,” the department said in a statement.

The state health agency conducted an investigation and “identified no additional H5N1 cases nor evidence of person-to-person transmission”.

Concerns are rising among public health experts because of the bird flu's potential for a deadly pandemic. The disease has spread over the last two years in wild birds, poultry, cows and other animals, including pets.

There have been at least 66 reported human cases of H5 bird flu in the US, all recorded in 2024, but experts say that could be an undercount.

Most of the infections have been mild, making the deadly Louisiana case unique in the US. Most recent cases were due to exposure with sick poultry or cows, but in two cases in Missouri and California, health officials do not know how they got the bird flu.

The World Health Organisation has recorded more than 460 deaths of bird flu since 2003, but the Louisiana person was the first in the US.

The CDC has consistently said there is no human-to-human transmission of the virus, and that the chances of that kind of spread are low. However, California in December declared a state of emergency to defend against those chances.

President Joe Biden's administration last week said it would commit $306 million for hospital readiness and work on tools and vaccines to address the virus. A little over $100 million of those funds will help local departments track and test people who have close exposure to infected herds.