First US bird flu death is a dire warning

Nuzzo says it’s highly likely that the Louisiana patient’s pre-existing health conditions contributed to the development of their illness, and points to the case of a Canadian teenager who was hospitalized with bird flu in November.

A 13-year-old girl was initially seen at an emergency department in British Columbia with fever and conjunctivitis in both eyes. He was discharged home untreated and later developed coughing, vomiting, and diarrhea. He returned to the emergency department with respiratory distress several days later. He was admitted to the intensive care unit and had difficulty breathing but later recovered after treatment. According to a A case report published in the New England Journal of Medicinethe girl had a history of mild asthma and high body weight. It is not known how he contracted the virus.

“What that tells us is that we don’t know who’s going to get mildly sick and who’s going to get really sick, and that’s why we have to be very careful with this disease,” says Nuzzo. “We should not assume that all future diseases will be mild.”

There is also some information that may explain the severity of the cases in Louisiana and British Columbia. Viral samples from both patients showed similar results. For one thing, they all had the same type of H5N1 virus called D1.1, which is a virus found in wild birds and chickens. It is different from the B3.13 subtype, which is more common in dairy cows.

“At this point, the question is, is this more difficult than dairy cows?” said Benjamin Anderson, associate professor of environmental and global health at the University of Florida. Until now, scientists do not have enough data to know the truth. A small number of chicken farm workers in Washington tested positive for the D1.1 virus, but these individuals had mild symptoms and did not require hospitalization.

“In the Louisiana case, we know that the person had a problem. We know that the person was an elderly person. Those are the things that make it so difficult when it comes to respiratory disease,” Anderson says.

In the Louisiana and British Columbia cases, there is evidence that the virus mutated in both patients to cause severe disease.

A CDC report from the end of December discovered a genetic change in a virus taken from a patient in Louisiana that may have allowed it to improve its ability to infect humans in space. The report says the changes observed may have been caused by the virus replicating throughout the patient’s illness rather than spread during the illness, meaning the changes were not present in birds the person had been exposed to.

Writing in New England Journal of Medicinethe team monitoring the Canadian teenager also reported “dangerous” mutations found in his virus. These changes could have allowed the virus to more easily attach to and enter human lung cells.

In the past, bird flu was not very common from person to person, but scientists are concerned about how the virus could cause mutations that could make it more contagious.

Meanwhile, people who work with birds, chickens, or cattle, or who enjoy them, are at risk of contracting bird flu. To prevent disease, health officials recommend avoiding direct contact with wild birds and other animals that are infected or suspected to be infected.