Wisconsin Health Researchers Say People With Chickens and Poultry Should Guard Against the Bird Flu

Thursday, January 9th, 2025 -- 10:01 AM

(Hope Kirwan, Wisconsin Public Radio) After the first U.S. avian flu death was reported this week, Wisconsin health researchers say people with backyard chickens and other poultry should be proactive in guarding against the virus.

According to Hope Kirwan with the Wisconsin Public Radio, the Louisiana Department of Health reported Monday that a patient who was infected with avian flu in December had died.

Officials say the person was over the age of 65 and had underlying medical conditions. The patient was the first in the country to experience severe illness related to the virus and is the first infected person to die in the U.S.

The case is also the first to be tied to a backyard poultry flock instead of a commercial farm. Tom Friedrich, professor of virology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, said more details are needed to understand what led to the patient’s death.

But he pointed out that other countries have already seen deaths caused by similar H5N1 viruses, especially in people who are sick enough to be hospitalized.

“There’s over 50 percent case fatality when people have these severe infections,” Friedrich said. “So it’s not unheard of in other parts of the world, even though this is the first time it’s happened in the United States.”

There have been 66 confirmed human cases of avian flu in the U.S., including one in a Wisconsin poultry farm worker in December. More than half of the infections have been in farm workers exposed by infected dairy cows in California.

Public health officials say the virus is still a low risk to the general public. There has been no evidence of human to human spread. Friedrich, who studies how viruses can cross from animals to humans, said the receptors on the surface of human cells are different from those in birds, making it harder for the virus to infect people.

But he said the case in Louisiana shows some concerning signs. “They found a few mutations in that virus that likely make it easier for that virus to grab on to human type cells,” he said, adding that there is no sign the virus was transmitted to another person.

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