California declared an emergency after the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first-ever severe bird flu case in the US.
According to ABC, the federal health agency said that a patient had been hospitalised in Louisiana on Wednesday, December 18, 2024, over the age of 65 with serious medical conditions.
A spokesperson from the Louisiana Department of Health told ABC News that the patient is experiencing severe respiratory illness due to bird flu and is in critical condition.
The CDC wrote in a press release, “The best way to prevent bird flu is to avoid exposure whenever possible. Infected birds shed avian influenza. A virus in their saliva, mucous, and feces. Other infected animals may shed avian influenza. Viruses in respiratory secretions and other bodily fluids (e.g., in unpasteurised cow milk or 'raw milk')."
Moreover, the CDC said that the Louisiana patient was exposed to sick and dead birds in backyard flocks and is the first human bird flu case linked to exposure to backyard flocks in the UK.
Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, explained, “The mild cases that we've seen in the United States largely reflect that many of the individuals are getting infected by dairy cows and that's very different than getting infected with infected birds.”
“If you look at the genotype of this patient in Louisiana, it wasn't the cattle strain. It was a wild bird strain,” he added.
As per CDC data, 61 bird flu cases have been reported in the United States since April 2024.
