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The Louisiana Department of Health said Monday that a US patient hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu has died, the first death in the country from an outbreak of the virus that has sickened dozens of people and millions of poultry and livestock.
Nearly 70 people in the U.S. have been infected with bird flu since April, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of them livestock farmers who were exposed to sick chickens or dairy cattle.
The patient in LouisianaThe first person in the country to be hospitalized with the virus contracted bird flu after exposure to a combination of backyard chickens and wild birds, Louisiana health officials said. The patient was hospitalized on Dec. 18, 2024, state health officials said.
Health officials said the patient was over 65 years old and had a history of health problems. The person was in contact with sick and dead birds in a flock in the yard.
State officials previously said the person was a resident of southwest Louisiana. No details were given as to when the death occurred.
There is no sign of the virus spreading from person to person, a key feature that scientists look for when assessing the pandemic potential of flu viruses.
Mutations similar to those found in a BC patient
U.S. officials also said genetic analysis showed the bird flu virus mutated while in the Louisiana patient. The mutations may have increased the virus’s ability to bind to cells in the upper respiratory tract, a technical summary from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests.
Samples from teenagers in British Columbia showed similar mutations, Canadian and American researchers reported last week. They said a 13-year-old girl he was in intensive care and no longer needs supplemental oxygen.
A hospitalized 13-year-old BC girl believed to be the first person to contract H5N1 bird flu in Canada is now out of intensive care and breathing on her own. The source of her infection remains unknown, but she is no longer contagious.
Both patients carried the version of the virus found in wild birds, not the one behind the outbreak in US dairy cattle.
Previous illnesses in the US have been mild, with most detected among farm workers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows. In two cases — an adult in Missouri and a child in California — health officials have not determined how they caught it.
“Although the current public health risk to the general public is low, people who work with or are recreationally exposed to birds, poultry or cows are at greater risk,” the Louisiana department said in a statement.
The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Most human cases of bird flu in the US have reported mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis or pink eye.
A wake-up call for public health?
“Although H5N1 cases in the US have been uniformly mild, the virus has the ability to cause severe illness and death in certain cases,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore. The Louisiana patient was at high risk for the flu given their age and underlying conditions, he said.
The death is not surprising given that bird flu has killed people in other countries, said Gail Hansen, a veterinary and public health adviser.
“I hate for someone’s death to be a wake-up call,” she said. “But if that’s what it takes, hopefully it will make people look more closely at bird flu and say that this is really a public health problem that we need to look at more closely.”
