The first critical case of H5N1 bird flu in the United States was announced on December 18. This patient has died, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announcement.
This is the first known death from this disease in the United States. 66 cases have been reported in the U.S. since 2024, according to the CDC. Additionally, “outside the United States, more than 950 cases of H5N1 bird flu have been reported to the World Health Organization; about half of those have resulted in death.”
Currently, the CDC has not changed their previous public health risk assessment. No person-to-person contamination has been identified yet.
