In its announcement this week of the first human death from bird flu in the United States, health officials in Louisiana were quick to note that the patient was over age 65 and “reported to have underlying medical conditions.

The death of a Louisiana resident who was over the age of 65 signals that future H5N1 infections are not guaranteed to be mild, health experts say

The patient, who was older than 65 and had underlying medical conditions, was hospitalized weeks ago in critical condition with severe respiratory illness.

The death in Louisiana — involving a person with underlying health conditions — is the first human case in the United States linked to exposure to backyard birds, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More should be done to control the spread of bird flu among animals to avoid more cases in humans, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Wednesday, following the first death of a patient from the virus in the United States.

The bird flu, also known as avian influenza and H5N1, was implicated in the first human death from the infectious disease on January 6. But still, no human-to-human transmission has been reported.

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.

Any time a person catches H5N1, or bird flu, their infection is a chance for the virus to mutate in the wrong direction. When someone dies from the bird flu—as an elderly Louisiana man did on Jan. 6,