A Louisiana resident has died after being hospitalized with bird flu, the state health department announced Monday, marking the first death in the US from the H5N1 virus.
“The patient was over the age of 65 and was reported to have underlying medical conditions,” the Louisiana Department of Health said in a statement. statementSaying that health officials still consider the public health risk from the virus to be low for the general public.
According to the health department, the patient tested positive after coming in contact with wild birds and a private backyard poultry flock that was infected with the virus. No other people have been found sick with the virus in Louisiana.
The Centers for Disease Control said, “CDC has carefully studied the available information about the person who died in Louisiana and continues to assess that the risk to the general public is low. Most importantly, any person— “No spread of person-to-person transmission has been identified.” And Prevention said in a statement on Monday.
H5N1 has been linked to at least seven other deaths from other countries in recent years. Since 2003, the World Health Organization was counted More than 400 deaths due to virus.
Patient from another American hospital tested positive due to the virus in Missouri last year, although officials said the person was not admitted because of the virus. Instead, the patient was in the hospital being treated for other pre-existing medical conditions.
Louisiana patient was sick with D1.1 strain of bird flu virus, genetic sequencing revealed by CDC last month,
Sequencing revealed that the patient's virus had some rare and potentially worrisome mutations. The CDC investigation concluded that genetic changes in the virus likely arose later during the person's infection, and were not found in the animals they were likely infected with.
The CDC said, “Although this is worrisome, and a reminder that A(H5N1) viruses can evolve changes during the clinical course of human infection, these changes do not appear in animal hosts or early in infection.” “Will be more worrisome if found in stages.”
The D1.1 strain is very similar to the virus that causes serious illness. 13 year old girl Who was admitted to hospital in Canada late last year.
Health officer in the province of British Columbia, Canada said last year They were unable to identify the source of the infection, but found that the virus sequence closely matched that of wild birds that were flying through the province in October.
This D1.1 strain of H5N1 bird flu is different from the B3.13 genotype that fueled last year's unprecedented outbreak on dairy farms across the US.
Including the Louisiana case, the CDC Maths Since last year, there have been 66 human cases of the H5 strain of bird flu in the US.
How does bird flu spread?
Most human cases have been in workers who became ill with the B3.13 strain after working with infected cattle. Nothing! those human affairs Has been hospitalized or died from the virus.
The CDC has said there is no evidence of “human-to-human” spread of H5N1. there are some previous outbreak Overseas, where the agency says “limited” H5N1 transmission is suspected to be occurring in small groups of people.
Wild birds or poultry in every state have now tested positive for at least one strain of H5N1. Hawaii becomes 50th state to detect infected bird last yearherds of at least hundreds of cattle 16 states Also tested positive for H5N1.
“Although the current public health risk to the general public is low, people who work with, or have recreational contact with, birds, chickens or cows are at greater risk. Protect yourself and your family from H5N1 The best approach is to avoid sources of exposure,” the Louisiana Department of Health said.
What are the symptoms of bird flu?
Many types of diseases have arisen due to bird flu. symptoms During the recent outbreak, that included common flu symptoms like cough and vomiting. Many have also suffered conjunctivitis or pink eye as the only symptom, which experts suspect is caused by workers splashing contaminated milk from cows infected with bird flu.
Most cases in the US have seen their symptoms resolve on average four days after first falling ill. Most people were also treated with the antiviral oseltamivir, also known by the brand name Tamiflu, which may have helped speed their recovery.
The child hospitalized in Canada initially had conjunctivitis and fever, which later developed cough, vomiting and diarrhea. He was later intubated after respiratory failure.