US reports first serious human case of bird flu

In Louisiana, one person was hospitalized with avian flu, the nation's first serious human infection with the H5N1 virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The patient suffers from a serious respiratory illness linked to infection with the H5N1 virus and is currently hospitalized in critical condition, said Emma Herrock, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health.

The CDC said the patient was likely exposed to the virus from a backyard flock, which would mark the first time such a flock has been associated with avian flu infection in a U.S. resident.

Although an investigation into the source of this infection in Louisiana is underway, the patient reported by Louisiana is believed to have been exposed to sick or dead birds on their property, said Dr. Demeter Daskalakis, director of the National Center Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, during a briefing on Wednesday.

The case was reported as presumptive positive by Louisiana on Friday and then confirmed by CDC laboratory testing.

Daskalakis said the Health Department is investigating, monitoring the patient's contacts for exposure and offering testing and antiviral medications if necessary.

The patient is older than 65 and has underlying health conditions, Herrock said. She did not answer questions about the patient's symptoms or the backyard flock.

In the United States this year, 61 human cases of bird flu have been reported. Wisconsin officials announced Wednesday that they had detected one additional probable case, in a person who was exposed to infected birds at a commercial poultry operation. This case is pending confirmation by the CDC.

No person-to-person transmission of bird flu has been documented so far. Most human cases have been mild and were found among farmworkers exposed to the virus through interactions with infected poultry or cattle. Common symptoms in previous cases included conjunctivitis, coughing and sneezing.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco who studies infectious diseases, said the Louisiana case highlights the risks of exposure outside of farms.

We have focused on workers in the dairy and poultry sectors, but an emerging risk is handling dead birds in your garden, he said.

Daskalakis said the CDC is still working to better characterize the virus's genome, which will help researchers understand whether it has developed any mutations of concern that could allow it to spread from person to person.

Early indicators from the Louisiana case suggest that the version of the virus causing the infection is similar to that circulating in wild birds and poultry in British Columbia, Canada and Washington state.

A British Columbia teenager was hospitalized in November after contracting the same genotype of the avian flu virus. Canadian health authorities have not been able to determine the source of the teenager's infection.

“What this illustrates is that people can get very sick from bird flu, and to me that ties in with the British Columbia case,” Chin-Hong said. “These patients are both united by the same variant.”

The CDC said this development does not change its assessment of H5N1's immediate public health risk, which it said remains “low.”

H5N1 began circulating widely among wild birds in the United States in 2022, then spread to poultry farms and backyard flocks. At least 123 million birds have been killed or euthanized because of the virus since 2022, according to the CDC.

This spring, avian flu began spreading among dairy cows, and at least 16 states have since detected the virus in cows.

Research on dairy farms has shown that the virus can spread effectively between mammals. Scientists have found that it is likely spread between farm animals through raw milk, because infected cows shed large amounts of virus through their mammary glands.

Although there is no evidence of the virus spreading between humans, scientists fear it could mutate and develop this ability, which could trigger the next pandemic.

In the United States, there have been two cases so far in which health authorities were unable to determine the source of a person's exposure to bird flu. One of them involved an infection in a California child reported in November. The other involved a hospitalized patient in Missouri who tested positive for H5N1 in August and recovered.

Daskalakis said the CDC considers the Louisiana case the first serious H5N1 infection because other conditions likely caused the Missouri patient to be hospitalized.

Additionally, Delaware health officials this week reported a case of H5N1 in a person with no known exposure to poultry or livestock. But CDC test results could not confirm it was H5N1, Daskalakis said, and the case is listed as “probable.”

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