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 risk to humans is low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People infected by the virus usually experience mild symptoms. There is still a danger, however: a person in Louisiana recently became the first person in the country to die from H5N1.

On Monday, Louisiana health officials announced that a person hospitalized last month with a severe case of avian influenza — also known as H5N1 bird flu — died. This is the first human death from bird flu in the U.S.

The Louisiana Department of Health said on Monday that a U.S. patient hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu has died.

A Louisiana patient who had been hospitalized with the first human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or H5N1, in Louisiana and the U.S. has died, the state's health department reported Monday. This marks the first human death related to bird flu in the U.S.

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.

The Louisiana patient who contracted what officials said was the nation’s first “severe” case of avian influenza has died, the state health department said Monday. The person who contracted the H5N1 strain of highly pathogenic bird flu in southwest Louisiana had been hospitalized since mid-December.

The Louisiana patient was hospitalized with a severe case of bird flu in the first death in the U.S. caused by the H5N1 virus.