The United States reports Louisiana’s first bird flu-related death.
A 65-year-old patient who was admitted to the hospital on December 18 died, marking the first bird flu death in US history.
The news was released on Monday by the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH). The patient was the first person in the United States to be admitted to the hospital due to the H5N1 virus.
No new H5N1 cases or indications of person-to-person transmission have been found as a result of LDH’s thorough public health investigation. In a social media post, the state agency stated that this patient is still the first human instance of H5N1 in Louisiana. “The risk to the general public’s health is still low.”
The patient had pre-existing problems, and authorities suspect that exposure to wild birds and backyard poultry caused the patient to get bird flu.
Millions of cattle and birds have been killed in an attempt to limit the virus’s spread, but the risk to people is still very low.
