“First US human death from bird flu is more serious than you may think”

By Bronwyn Thompson

“…..Post-infection mutation and no human-to-human transmission suggests whatever the viral changes, it’s not one that hugely concerns epidemiologists. It would be far worse for someone to become infected with an already altered H5N1 D1.1 strain, which would most likely point to the virus getting closer to cracking the complex code of human-to-human infection.
“The worry is, the more you let this sort of run wild … the more chances you have for this sort of mutation to not only occur, but to then get out and infect someone else, then you start a chain reaction,” Louisiana State University scientist Rebecca Christofferson told AFP this week.”…
“Further analysis identified that the mutation has the potential to more efficiently bind to cells in the upper respiratory tract in humans, which existing avian influenza strains have been unable to do. And, obviously, experts are concerned that each time the virus proves more adept at causing severe human infection, the more likely it will also figure out how best to jump between people.”
to read the full article go to
https://newatlas.com/infectious-diseases/first-us-human-death-bird-flu/

“Bird Flu Is a National Embarrassment. America should have more aggressively intervened almost a year ago.”

By Katherine J. Wu

“Three years ago, when it was trickling into the United States, the bird-flu virus that recently killed a man in Louisiana was, to most Americans, an obscure and distant threat…..But this virus is fundamentally more difficult to manage than even a few months ago and is now poised to become a persistent danger to people.
“That didn’t have to be the reality for the United States. “The experiment of whether H5 can ever be successful in human populations is happening before our eyes,” Seema Lakdawala, a flu virologist at Emory University, told me. “And we are doing nothing to stop it.” The story of bird flu in this country could have been shorter. It could have involved far fewer cows. The U.S. has just chosen not to write it that way.”
to read the full article go to
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/01/bird-flu-embarrassing/681264/

“California child is presumed positive for bird flu”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/10/health/california-child-bird-flu/index.html?cid=ios_app