The bird flu virus circulating among cows, poultry and wild birds isn't yet a threat to the general public, but experts say if and when that will change is impossible to predict — and that if things do get bad,

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 U.S. has experienced its first death from H5N1 bird flu. Here’s what happened, plus how concerned you should be, according to doctors.

CDC reported the death of a person due to the H5N1 bird flu virus. Bird flu spreads from animals and birds to humans. The infection infects your upper respiratory tract and lungs. Read on to know more about the virus.

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.

Most human cases of bird flu in North America have been mild, a fact that’s underscored by a new study of the first 46 confirmed human H5N1 infections in the United States this year. But the case of an ill Canadian teen stands out because of its severity and because the source of exposure remains a mystery.

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,