US announces first bird flu death in Louisiana

A US patient who had been hospitalised with H5N1 bird flu has died, the Louisiana Department of Health said, marking the country’s first reported human death from the virus.

"The patient contracted H5N1 after exposure to a combination of a non-commercial backyard flock and wild birds," the Louisiana Department of Health said in a statement on Monday.

Despite this death, the public health risk posed by bird flu remains "low," the statement said, adding that it had detected no human-to-human transmission.

"While the current public health risk for the general public remains low, people who work with birds, poultry or cows, or have recreational exposure to them, are at higher risk," it warned.

In a statement, CDC officials described the Louisiana death as tragic but also said, "There are no concerning virologic changes actively spreading in wild birds, poultry or cows that would raise the risk to human health."

The patient, aged over 65, had been hospitalised for a respiratory ailment and was the first serious case of human infection of the H5N1 virus to be detected in the United States.

The announcement in mid-December of the patient being in "critical condition" sparked alarm that the United States could see an outbreak of a possible bird flu pandemic, with similar cases reported worldwide.

'Public health issue'

Genetic sequencing has shown that the H5N1 virus that infected the Louisiana patient was different from the version of the virus detected in many dairy herds and poultry farms around the country.

Experts are concerned that a high circulation of the virus in mammals could lead to mutations that make it more easily spread among humans.

"This is a tragic reminder of what experts have been screaming for months, H5N1 is a deadly virus," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University's School of Public Health.

"I hate to have the death of somebody be a wake-up call," said Gail Hansen, a veterinary and public health consultant. "But if that's what it takes, hopefully, that will make people look at bird flu a little more carefully and say this really is a public health issue we need to be looking at more closely."

H5N1 was first detected in 1996, but since 2020, the number of outbreaks among bird flocks has exploded, while a growing number of mammal species have been affected.

___

Source: TRT