Louisiana resident becomes first American to become critically ill with H5N1 bird flu as pandemic fears rise

An American has been hospitalized with a severe case of bird flu, in the first case of severe illness in the country.

The patient is in Louisiana, and investigators said likely caught the disease after handling sick and dead birds in a backyard poultry flock.

No further details on their symptoms have been revealed, except that they are ‘severely ill’ with the virus. 

And it is not thought that the patient passed on the infection to others.

The CDC sent out an alert over the case, and said the patient was infected with the H5N1 strain called D1.1 — linked to wild birds and poultry — which differs from that causing a disease outbreak in cattle.

The strain also hospitalized a ‘healthy’ teenager in Canada early last month, who was left in a critical condition and required help breathing.

Officials described the infection as ‘sporadic’ today, and said that a case linked to backyard poultry — although the first in the nation — was ‘not unexpected’.

It does not change the overall assessment that the risk to the public from bird flu is still ‘low’, the CDC said. 

Since April 2024, a total of 61 people have been diagnosed with H5N1 in the US — but mostly with mild symptoms such as ‘pink eye’.

One other patient has previously been hospitalized, a patient in Missouri who was reported to have underlying symptoms.

There have been no reports of deaths due to a bird flu infection this year.

This is a breaking news story. More follows…