The rise of bird flu across farms in California has raised questions about the virus and its potential threat to humans. While the threat to humans is currently small.

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.

Just when you stopped regularly hearing about COVID-19 in the news, another infectious disease began to dominate headlines this spring: bird flu. The type of bird flu that’s currently circulating is a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)—a disease that can seriously sicken wild and domestic birds,