{"id":301560,"date":"2025-11-22T13:57:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T13:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301560\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T13:57:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T13:57:15","slug":"bird-flu-first-ever-death-from-rare-h5n5-strain-is-recorded-in-us-bird-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301560\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu: first ever death from rare H5N5 strain is recorded in US | Bird flu"},"content":{"rendered":"

A person in the US is believed to be the first human to die from a rare strain of bird flu<\/a>, but state health officials said on Friday the risk to the public is low.<\/p>\n

The person in Washington<\/a> state, an older adult with underlying health conditions, was being treated for a bird flu strain called H5N5 after becoming seemingly the first known human infected by the strain, according to a statement from the Washington State Department of Health.<\/p>\n

The patient had been in hospital with the disease since early November after developing a high fever, confusion and respiratory problems, health officials said earlier.<\/p>\n

The person \u2013 from Grays Harbor county, about 78 miles (125km) south-west of Seattle<\/a> \u2013 had a backyard flock of domestic poultry that had been exposed to wild birds, health officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk to the public remains low,\u201d the statement from state health officials said. \u201cNo other people involved have tested positive for avian influenza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health<\/a> officials said they would monitor anyone who came in close contact with the man, but \u201cthere is no evidence of transmission of this virus between people\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement about the infection that said no information would suggest \u201cthe risk to public health has increased as a result of this case\u201d.<\/p>\n

H5N5 is not believed to be a greater threat to human health than the H5N1 virus behind a wave of 70 reported human infections in the US in 2024 and 2025. Most of those have been mild illnesses in workers on dairy and poultry farms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The distinction between H5N5 and H5N1 lies in a protein involved in releasing the virus from an infected cell and promoting spread to surrounding cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A person in the US is believed to be the first human to die from a rare strain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-301560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}