The first human death related to avian influenza has been recorded in the United States. The health authorities of the US state of Louisiana announced this, specifying that it was an elderly patient suffering from other pathologies.
The patient, over 65 years of age, had been hospitalized for a respiratory illness and was the first serious case of human contamination with the H5N1 virus detected in the country. Despite this death, the risk posed by avian influenza to public health remains “low”, the authorities estimate on their website.