With reports of the first human death from bird flu in the US, some Americans are feeling an uncomfortable flashback to the early days of Covid-19, when infectious disease experts were talking about a new virus that was sending people to the hospital with respiratory infections.

The bird flu, also known as avian influenza and H5N1, was implicated in the first human death from the infectious disease on January 6. But still, no human-to-human transmission has been reported.

A 65-year-old man has died in Louisiana, marking the first fatal case of H5N1 avian flu in the USA. Scientists warn that the virus is "quite dangerous." Louisiana has reported this first fatal case. The man,

The case in Louisiana is the first human death from bird flu in the U.S. during this current outbreak, but there was a death in Mexico back in May 2024 in a patient with no known exposure to farm animals. The case, much like the patient in Louisiana, was in a person with other underlying conditions, though it’s not clear what those may have been.

In its announcement this week of the first human death from bird flu in the United States, health officials in Louisiana were quick to note that the patient was over age 65 and “reported to have underlying medical conditions.

Any time a person catches H5N1, or bird flu, their infection is a chance for the virus to mutate in the wrong direction. When someone dies from the bird flu—as an elderly Louisiana man did on Jan. 6,

The CDC says the risk of bird flu to the general public is low, but public health experts say they are worried the virus could mutate and become more transmissible.

A commercial operation in Hyde County has tested positive for Bird Flu. This is the first case of the disease in commercial poultry in North Carolina since Feb. of 2024.

For the first time, a person in the United States has died after being infected with the bird flu. The World Health Organization says the risk of infection for the general population remains low, but as VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports,