The patient, who was older than 65 and had underlying medical conditions, was hospitalized Dec. 18 in critical condition with severe respiratory illness.

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.

A patient in Louisiana has died of bird flu. Health authorities considered the case to be the first severe H5N1 infection in a U.S. resident.

The other 65 known cases in the U.S. have all had been mild, though a 13-year-old girl in Canada with H5N1 also had severe illness.

The first U.S. bird flu death has been reported. Louisiana health officials announced the death Monday of a person who had been hospitalized with severe respiratory symptoms.

The U.S. has recorded its first fatal case of H5N1 bird flu, in a person from Louisiana who contracted the virus from infected chickens and wild birds in a backyard flock.

The first Louisiana patient with bird flu has died, officials with the state health department said Monday. The death is the first U.S. H5N1-related human death, the agency said.

The Louisiana Department of Health said on Monday that a U.S. patient hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu had died, the country's first death from an outbreak of the virus that has sickened dozens of people and millions of poultry and cattle.