Health officials report first severe human bird flu case in US

Louisiana man had been in contact with sick and dead birds in backyard flocks, reports Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and notes danger to general public still low

This colorized electron microscope image released by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on March 26, 2024, shows avian influenza A H5N1 virus particles (yellow), grown in Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) epithelial cells (blue). (CDC/NIAID via AP)
This colorized electron microscope image released by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on March 26, 2024, shows avian influenza A H5N1 virus particles (yellow), grown in Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) epithelial cells (blue). (CDC/NIAID via AP)

NEW YORK — A person in Louisiana has the first severe illness caused by bird flu in the US, health officials said Wednesday.

The patient had been in contact with sick and dead birds in backyard flocks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Agency officials didn’t immediately detail the person’s symptoms.

Previous illnesses in the US had been mild and the vast majority had been among farmworkers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows.

This year, 61 bird flu infections have been reported, more than half of them in California. In two — an adult in Missouri and a child in California — health officials have not determined how they caught it.

The CDC confirmed the Louisiana infection on Friday but did not announce it until Wednesday. It’s also the first US human case linked to exposure to a backyard flock.

CDC said that partial viral genome data from the infected patient shows that the virus belongs to the D1.1 genotype, recently detected in wild birds and poultry in the United States and in recent human cases in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington state.

This genotype of the virus is different from the B3.13 genotype detected in dairy cows, human cases in multiple states, and some poultry outbreaks in the country, CDC said.

Mike Weber watches an employee clean a hen house at his egg farm in Petaluma, Calif. on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. His company Sunrise Farms had to euthanize 550,000 chickens after avian flu was detected among the flock. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Health officials say bird flu is still mainly an animal health issue, and the risk to the general public remains low. There’s been no documented spread of the virus from person to person.

The CDC said that a sporadic case of severe H5N1 bird flu illness in a person is not unexpected as has previously been experienced in other countries during 2024 and prior years, including in cases that led to death. The agency said its assessment of risk to the public remains low.

In 2021, an outbreak of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu strain killed some 1.6 million chickens and turkeys in northern Israel, and almost 8,000 cranes, mainly in the Hula Valley, along with smaller numbers of ducks, great white pelicans, and birds of prey. The flu, which is fatal for birds, can also infect mammals, including humans.

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