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United States

US Records Its First Human Bird Flu Death (nbcnews.com) 98

Posted by BeauHD from the PTSD-alert dept.
A 65-year-old patient in the United States with underlying medical conditions has died from bird flu. According to NBC News, "health officials considered the case to be the "country's first severe human H5N1 infection." From the report: The Louisiana Department of Health said the patient had been exposed to a combination of a backyard flock and wild birds. "The Department expresses its deepest condolences to the patient's family and friends as they mourn the loss of their loved one," it said in a statement. "Due to patient confidentiality and respect for the family, this will be the final update about the patient." All but one of the [67] human bird flu infections confirmed so far in the U.S. were diagnosed in the last 10 months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases have been relatively mild, with symptoms including pinkeye, coughs or sneezes. The majority of the patients became sick after exposure to infected cattle or poultry. The Louisiana patient was the first case linked to exposure to a backyard flock. [...]

The CDC maintains that the immediate risk to public health is low. Public health officials have not found any evidence that the virus has spread person-to-person, which would mark a dire step in bird flu's evolution. "While tragic, a death from H5N1 bird flu in the United States is not unexpected because of the known potential for infection with these viruses to cause severe illness and death," the agency said in a statement on Monday. "There are no concerning virologic changes actively spreading in wild birds, poultry, or cows that would raise the risk to human health," the statement added. However, samples of the virus collected from the Louisiana patient showed signs of mutations that could make it more transmissible to humans, according to the agency.

US Records Its First Human Bird Flu Death More | Reply

US Records Its First Human Bird Flu Death

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  • Fake news (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday January 06, 2025 @09:04PM (#65068535)

    Birds aren't real.

  • Ah shit, here we go again...

    • Nah, I'm sure the discussion here will be reasonable and thoughtful - with zero hyperbole.

      • Re:obligatory (Score:5, Informative)

        by jhoegl ( 638955 ) on Monday January 06, 2025 @10:05PM (#65068711)
        Well, at least 1 million people didnt make it out of covid. Those that read this and think "fake news", will be amongst the next million.

        You cant teach people who dont want to listen, and when they do want to listen, its too late.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          Well, at least 1 million people didnt make it out of covid. Those that read this and think "fake news", will be amongst the next million.

          You cant teach people who dont want to listen, and when they do want to listen, its too late.

          TBF, the big problem with Covid wasn't it's deadliness (it was definitely more deadly than the flu, but not super deadly) but how easily it spread. It could live on surfaces for up to two weeks. Fortunately the vaccinations reduced the severity, because the fake nooz morons definitely accelerated the spread.

          However with most versions of bird flu, its not that contagious. To paraphrase comedian Dara O'Brien from the last great bird flu incident (where Bernard Mathews was sitting atop a throne of turkey sk

          • Yeah anti-COVID measures actually made a few flu strains go extinct, which is kinda fun. The main risk with bird flu percolating between species is that it will hybridize with a human strain and produce a 1918 type flu. That's why it puts virologists' hair on end but isn't time to panic yet.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            However with most versions of bird flu, its not that contagious. To paraphrase comedian Dara O'Brien from the last great bird flu incident (where Bernard Mathews was sitting atop a throne of turkey skulls) you have to lick a dead turkey or it's droppings. That may be a bit of an exaggeration but it's not easily spread amongst humans, which sadly means that the morons will survive. So much for Darwin, sometimes I think there is wisdom in removing some of the warning labels.

            But spare a thought for all the chi

        • Add on top an anti vaxxer at the helm of public health, yeah if we get into a 1918 like shitshow, those guys wont make the next pandemic, the rest will very likely survive, masks work excellently against the flu!

    • Nah, this is obviously BS.

      > "Due to patient confidentiality and respect for the family, this will be the final update about the patient."

      We know how the hoaxes are manufactured this time around.

      • What further updates are you expecting? The patient died.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Crying relatives on the news at least. Maybe some TMZ sightings. Ideally a documentary about how they're all Satan worshipping sexual deviants. You know, so we can be sure they're real people and not paid actors.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          The method of death caused by the virus. Also the method of transmission/how they caught the virus, and what the progress is regarding tracking infected wildlife, and containing, and exterminating before the infected flocks cause more human deaths and mutation of the virus into deadlier forms.

        • I'm curious what the other underlying medical conditions were. Was it an uncommon and severe autoimmune condition? Or something relatively commonplace like diabetes or heart disease that applies to tens of millions of people?
          • Why is it better that they died if they had an underlying condition?

            • Because it implies that the risk may be lower to the general population. If only those with unusual comorbidities are dying of H5N1, all else being equal, we'd expect to see fewer deaths if it starts spreading than if it were dangerous to those with common comorbidities (diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc.).

              • So what I get from that is that you don't care unless it affects you. Or to put it another way, you are looking for a reason not to care.

                • you are looking for a reason not to care.

                  It'd be more accurate to say I'm trying to determine how much to care. Understanding whether H5N1 poses a serious threat to the lives of 100 people or 100 million people does affect that calculus. Because, yeah, I'm going to find it hard to get worked up if it's a drop in the bucket against the typical 50,000 American flu deaths that happen every year.

                  Get your flu shots, folks.

            • Because they can say it wasn't the virus and feel better about their bias.

        • Died of bird flu, is now worm food. And we all know the early bird gets the worm...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Couple of differences. First, H5N1 doesn't support human-to-human transmission, it's always bird to some other animal (like a cow), then humans. Humans can then re-infect the cow, and that cow can infect humans again. Among the avian population though, it's extremely contagious with entire flocks catching it within days.

      Of course, we'd prefer to not have transfers so it's generally routine to quarantine to avoid mutations that might make it work cross-species more readily

      Second, we do have vaccines right no

  • Before we freak out... (Score:3)

    by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Monday January 06, 2025 @09:33PM (#65068625) Journal

    ... TFA says that this bird flu does not (yet) show signs of human-to-human transmission. But stay tuned for news of possible mutations that could transmit thus.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by labnet ( 457441 )

      It's OK, Billy G is hard at work as we speak.

    • If a human can get infected by it - it can be transferred from human to human. That is a no brainer.
      In virus infections only the target is relevant, not the source.

      • That is not how viral infection vectors work even remotely.

        • It is exactly how it works.
          Either the virus can dock to your body cells, and deploy its DNA or RNA: or it can't.
          Has absolutely nothing to do from which source the particular load of viruses came from.

          • Correct. What limits human-to-human in zoonotic diseases is how readily they can bind to human receptors. The chicken farmer gets exposed a lot more, so there's a lot more dice rolls than when he falls ill and coughs on his spouse, so she may not catch it. But the odds aren't zero.
        • I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but the virus can bind the target cell receptor in the new host or it can't. There are certainly contributing factors for why human-to-human spread will be more limited (e.g. replication may be lower efficiency in the new host, or the new host succumbs too quickly to be an efficient vector) but he's mostly correct.
    • You mean the ones likely being worked on by Ecohealth alliance? Yeah, that's my concern too.
    • and cow-to-human. There are birds everywhere on Earth. Even if it does not mutate into human-to-human transmission, bird-to-human transmission should be a concern in itself.

  • when Kennedy prescribes eating more greens and not using the vaccines under development will be Biden's fault.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

      Do they still make iron lungs? If he gets rid the polio vaccine I'm buying stock in iron long manufacturers.

  • Transmission of this virus from birds to humans is uncommon, but it has been going on for a long time. It always had the potential to kill some humans (usually elderly or having other comorbidities or both.

    Transmission between cattle is something new and a lot more concerning because we share more characteristics with cows than birds. So far, no known cases of fatal flu transmitted from cattle to humans.

    If the flu changes to allow human to human transmission, or so that it is more severe in cattle, you can be sure to hear a lot more panicky news. It's not like most Americans trust the CDC to tell the truth anymore and nothing sells news better than fear.

    Traceability is collecting sales, births, deaths, and other disease tracking events to the government. This is so you can isolate and respond to disease outbreaks in the food supply. Traceability is the norm in Europe. The US government does not collect traceability data for beef or dairy cattle. They have talked about it for many years, but the industry opposes such requirements. Should the avian flu get a serious risk upgrade, it will not be possible to enact traceability in time to do anything useful to protect the general population based on traceability data.

    BTW, I work for a software company for dairy management that is sold world-wide and has implemented traceability systems in the software for many countries. I wrote the system for Canada, and I have worked on German and Italian traceability systems. We fully expected that the US would require it pronto once cattle transmission started - but nope. When asking the powers that be about finally requiring traceability now that it has crossed over to cattle - still no action expected at this time. Why do we have a government that waits for a crisis (often at least partially a result of their own rules), then makes up new and often poorly considered rules in response?

  • H5N1 could be very serious (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gkelley ( 9990154 ) on Monday January 06, 2025 @11:12PM (#65068833)
    A 13 year old girl in BC, CA developed a serious case after being infected with H5N1 (they have not been able to identify how she was infected) and was admitted to the ICU after a number of days of misdiagnose - this was back in Nov. 2024 - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]. From reports the girl was in good health before the infection.

  • This gives new meaning... (Score:3)

    by joshuark ( 6549270 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2025 @12:20AM (#65068873)

    This gives new meaning to an old phrase; I can see the next Dr. Anthony Fauci standing next to Donald J. Trump, and when a reporter asks how he (Fauci) knows its the bird flu, Fauci replies:

    "A little bird told me."

    JoshK.

  • Just as a Very Stable Genius assumes power again and plans to install anti vaccine nut job and brain worm host RJK Jr. to be in charge of the nation's health and "go wild" (verbatim quote).

    Our future's so bright we gotta wear shades.

  • Too bad the human bird died from the flu. That was a great achievement of CRISPR.

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