As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains, bird flu is a disease caused by the influenza A virus. At the same time, recent CDC data shows that seasonal influenza A is rising across the U.

With reports of the first human death from bird flu in the US, some Americans are feeling an uncomfortable flashback to the early days of Covid-19, when infectious disease experts were talking about a new virus that was sending people to the hospital with respiratory infections.

A researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital said the bird flu virus needs to be taken seriously so it doesn’t become the next pandemic.

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.

Horses carry their own form of flu virus, and researchers say that if the two viruses combine, the consequences are unknown

Two months shy of the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic, the US has recorded its first human death as a result of avian influenza H5N1 infection. The unidentified Louisiana man contracted the virus through contact with infected wild and domestic birds on his property