Louisiana reports its first human case of avian flu

By Elise Plunk
Contributing Writer

(lailluminator.com) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will test dairy cattle for evidence of highly pathogenic avian influenza before they are moved into meat production.

State officials have confirmed Louisiana’s first presumptive case of the avian influenza strand H5N1 on Friday. The patient infected with the virus, a resident of Southwest Louisiana, is currently hospitalized, according to a Louisiana Department of Health news release.

H5N1 is a strand of the influenza virus that infects birds and poultry. It can be passed on to humans who work in close contact with sick and dead birds. Human cases reported in other states have mostly been linked to dairy workers where the virus has been spread to cattle.

The virus can cause severe breathing problems and death in birds. Similar, severe flu-like symptoms can appear in humans, though the risk for public health is generally low. Only 60 confirmed human cases of H5N1 have been reported across the U.S. in 2024, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Louisiana is the eighth state to report a human case and the first in the Southeast. California has the most human cases with 34, followed by Washington with 11 and Colorado at 10. 

The CDC has monitored widespread outbreaks of the current H5N1 strain in poultry farms, dairy farms and wild birds since 2022, with about 122.8 million poultry, 832 herds of dairy cattle and 10,700 wild birds infected. Poultry outbreaks have been recorded in 49 states. 

The Louisiana health department, which is coordinating its response with the CDC, confirmed that the person became infected from close contact with birds that had the virus. 

Officials say the best way to prevent exposure to H5N1 is to limit contact with sources of illness, such as:

• wild birds and their droppings
• poultry or dairy farms
• undercooked eggs
• unpasteurized milk 
• cross-contamination while cooking raw meat 

The H5N1 strain is contagious and can spread quickly, though there is no confirmed history of person-to-person transmission of the virus in the United States. 

The annual flu vaccine can’t prevent the avian flu, but it reduces the chance of coinfection with other flu variants, according to the CDC.

This article originally published in the December 23, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.