The Louisiana Department of Health reported the first U.S. death from bird flu. This was the individual who was diagnosed with H5N1 Bird Flu in December. The person was 65 years old with underlying health conditions and had reportedly “had exposure to sick and dead birds in backyard flocks.” The CDC said that this person’s death was tragic but “not unexpected.”
After weeks of hospitalization, the person has died in the hospital but the Department of Health still says that the general health risk to the public is low.
The CDC says that there have been “66 confirmed human cases of H5N1 bird flu in the United States since 2024 and 67 since 2022 [but] this is the first person in the United States who has died as a result of an H5 infection. Outside the United States, more than 950 cases of H5N1 bird flu have been reported to the World Health Organization; about half of those have resulted in death.”
The CDC says that no person-to-person spread of bird flu has been detected and that “there are no concerning virologic changes actively spreading in wild birds, poultry, or cows that would raise the risk to human health.”
